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This is the Convergent Science Network podcast. Leading researchers in the domain

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of neuroscience, brain theory and technology are interviewed by Paul Vershoor and Tony Prescott.

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So, Paul Vershoor here with Barcelona Cognition Brain Technology Summer School

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talking to Kevin O'Regan. Kevin, welcome.

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Thank you. And what you presented at the summer school also very much related

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to your book that just came out.

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What's the title of your book? The title of the book is Why Red Doesn't Sound

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Like a Bell, Understanding the Feel of Consciousness with Oxford University

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Press. You can buy it on Amazon.

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Okay. So, but now in some sense, the challenge for the talk here was to say,

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okay, how can we build robots that feel, right?

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And then sort of the problem you started out with is, okay, if we have this

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closing scene of, I think it was Terminator 3, where he ends up in the boiling

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vat with burning oil, whatever it was, would this Terminator feel pain or not?

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And this is in some sense how you start to address this whole question of feel and qualia.

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So what's your answer to this question and how do you get to that answer?

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So in one word, the answer is yes. In fact, Terminator would feel the pain,

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even though it sounds surprising at first.

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And I think that to understand this, you have to think about feel in a new way

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and realize that it's not something that is generated in some magical way by biological organisms,

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but it's a way of talking about the capacities that biological organisms have.

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Just like life is a capacity or a property of the way organisms interact with the world,

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as soon as you have something like Terminator, who interacts with the world

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in certain ways, then what we mean by feel is that's what he's doing. There's nothing new.

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You don't have to build anything into a robot for it to feel.

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Once it behaves in the way that we call having a feel, well, then it has a feel.

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Okay, but then you run the risk that in some way this is true by definition.

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That's right. Right, so this is now what we have to inspect in a bit more detail.

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It is, as I was saying in my book, and as I was saying in the talk I gave today

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at BCBT it's really a matter of.

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A trick. It's a trick, a scientific trick that we can play that lets us think

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about things in a new way.

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I think that what happened with life at the beginning of the 20th century was the same trick.

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So what happened was the vitalist at the beginning of the 20th century thought

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that in order to explain how certain organisms possessed life,

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you had to postulate some élan vital, or some vital spirit that kind of imbued

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life into these organisms.

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But gradually it became clear over the 20th century that this was the wrong

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way of thinking about life, and that it was a better way of thinking about life

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to say that life is just a word that applies to certain organisms that interact

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with their environment in a certain way.

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They can reproduce, they metabolize, they breathe, they move,

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and it's a matter of definition to say that whether or not an organism is alive. Is a virus alive?

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Is a bacterium alive? These are matters of definition.

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And I suggest that taking the same stance with regard to feel and saying that

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feel is a certain way of interacting with the environment solves the problem of the magic of feel.

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But you have, in that redefinition, you have actually anchored that by looking

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at very specific problems around this notion of qualia, Where you looked at,

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let's say, ineffability,

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the impossibility to communicate these states.

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The structure to feel, and also the presence of feel.

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So what's the transition there exactly if we go to these apparently unsolvable

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problems, this hard problem of qualia, which is summarized in these three key properties?

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How do we now resolve that if we take this sensory-motor view?

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Okay, so I think classically, if you think about feel in the normal way that

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most people think about it as being somehow generated by the brain,

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it becomes rather mysterious to understand how it could be, for example,

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that the brain could generate the feel of redness and that this feel would be

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different from the feel of greenness. How could the brain do this?

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What kind of neural mechanism could we envisage that would generate two different kinds of feel?

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And also, how could one generate something in the brain that could make it feel

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like something to have the feel of redness or to have a pain,

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rather than feeling like nothing?

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These are the classic problems that the philosophers put forward when they talk

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about what they call the hard problem of consciousness, namely the question

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of why there's something it's like to have a feel. Feel.

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My idea is that in order to overcome the difficulty that the philosophers have with Feel,

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taking the stance according to which Feel is a way of talking about the capacity

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that an organism has to interact with its environment,

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taking this stance allows us to solve these mysteries about Feel.

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My first step in my book is to try and decide what exactly the mysterious aspects are.

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And one of the mysterious aspects is the fact that fields are considered to

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be first-person and ineffable, that's to say, not communicable to others.

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A second mystery is the fact that fields have a structure, like they can be

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compared or contrasted.

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For example, red is more similar to pink than it is to green.

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Sometimes they cannot be compared and contrasted. For example,

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red is completely incomparable to the smell of onion or to the sound of a bell.

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How do you explain these facts? That is one of the mysteries.

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That's the second mystery, in fact, of feel. The first one is ineffability.

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The second one is the structure of feels.

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The third mystery is really the most profound mystery, which is why feels have something it's like.

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Why do people say it feels like something rather than it feels like nothing?

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That's the question of sensory presence.

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And I think that if you take this new stance, this new what I call sensory motor

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approach, you can overcome those.

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But now in analyzing these problems, in some sense, you're already biased by,

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let's say, the sensory motor paradigm that you want to take, right?

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For instance, if you look at this issue of the sensory presence,

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where you were making a distinction between, let's say, subconscious autonomic

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processes versus, let's say, sensory processes, saying,

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okay, you're not consciously aware.

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There's no qualia, there's no feel as such attached to the level of oxygen in

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your blood, right? Right.

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While if you talk about indeed red or bottles or sound studios and so on,

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there would be some content to that.

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But the argument was made there that this was also Bjorn Merker who made that

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point that, well, actually in terms of the feel.

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Right. There can be a very strong feel when oxygen levels reaches a certain lower bound.

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Right. When the sort of homostatic regulation starts to become unstuck,

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there might be a very strong feel.

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So what does it mean then with respect to this notion of sensory presence and

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isn't sensory always towards the external world or does it also include an internal world?

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Right. So I think classically, even from the Greek philosophers onwards,

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there's always been this idea that there were five basic senses, hearing, seeing,

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tasting, smelling, and touch.

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These five basic sense modalities, they seem to have something special about

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them as compared to other senses.

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What you were referring to is, for example, the feeling of suffocating when

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I'm out of breath, or the feeling of being tired when I've got too little glucose

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in my blood, for example.

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These are perhaps also feelings, but they have somehow a different nature.

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They don't seem quite so present, I should say. There's less of something it's like to have them.

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Our everyday world is essentially composed of information or sensations we get

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from these five basic sense modalities.

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So what I would like to do is explain why there's something special about these.

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Obviously, feeling tired and feeling the feeling of suffocation or the feeling

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of the posture that you're adopting when you sit, for example, when you stand.

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These certainly are things you can become aware of, but whereas one feels the

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pain and one sees the redness,

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one doesn't somehow feel your posture or feel your tiredness in the same way.

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Well, I think it's arguable. I think one can discuss it. Maybe there's a continuum.

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Maybe one should make a break.

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That's, I think, the issue, right? Would you accept a continuum there? Absolutely, yes.

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I think it's not a critical challenge to your theory. No, no, no. In fact….

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In fact, I would like to explain all the aspects of the continuum.

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I'd like to explain, well, why is it that the philosophers for centuries have

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distinguished these five sensory modalities as being somehow different and somehow special?

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I would have to account for that in my approach. Exactly. Right.

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So, now there are two steps we have to make, right? So, on the one hand,

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if you look at the state of the art in the field, when we deal with qualia from

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a scientific perspective, not necessarily from the a philosophical one,

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you would say, okay, so now we're going to look for neural correlates, right?

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We're going to have people experience different things. We're going to try to

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control this in some way.

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When people report, when they experience certain things.

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And now we're going to look at what neurons are doing in relation to these kinds

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of experiences. So why is that not helping us?

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So that would certainly be the first impulse of the average scientist today

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would be to look for the neural correlates.

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And so, supposing they were to find that neurons that were strongly correlated

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with a sensation of red were these neurons,

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and the neurons that were strongly correlated with a sensation of green were those neurons.

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And this was true in every human being, and it was just 100% correlation.

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Then we could ask, well, what is it about those red conveying neurons that gives

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that red feel rather than the green feel?

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And we could look into the neurons, and maybe we would find that it was a special

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neurotransmitter, for example, that the red neurons had that the green neurons didn't have.

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And then you could ask, well, what is it about the neurotransmitter in the red

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neurons that gives that red feeling?

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And you could say, well, maybe it's because they have an extra nitrogen atom

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or something. And whatever you do.

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There's always going to be another question. Whatever answer you give to the

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question, well, why does it give the red feeling rather than the green feeling?

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There's always going to be another question.

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So I think there's a logical barrier here.

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There's what the philosophers called an explanatory gap, because it just doesn't seem possible.

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This is a logical question. It doesn't seem to be logically possible to bridge

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this gap between a description in terms of neurophysiological parameters and

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a description in terms of parameters that will explain the redness of red.

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Right. So it's also on those grounds that it looks throwing more,

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let's say, measurements at the problem will not solve the problem.

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We have to really jump out of this box and find a new ball, right?

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And the key thing is that the neural correlate approach would give you this infinite regress.

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So it's like an under-constrained approach to this issue of subjective experience.

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But now, what is this alternative?

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How do we resolve this issue? How are we going to solve this hard problem?

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So this is the trick that I'm suggesting. Exactly. And it's a trick,

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as I said, similar to the trick that was used to solve the problem of life.

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Mm-hmm. Now, you might say, or some people might say, well, we still haven't

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solved the problem of life because life is a wonderful, poetic thing.

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And obviously, what life really is is something that's much richer than DNA replication,

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all the stuff we know and have learned over the last century,

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or no, I should say since Crick and Watson discovered the double helix.

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All this is very interesting, but it isn't really life, is it?

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And I would counter to that. I say it may not give you a good description of

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the poetry of life, but it is pretty good science that's been done.

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And what I suggest is that we should adopt the same tactic as regards feel.

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So are you saying that life as such in the traditional sense is not a natural category?

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It's not really a natural phenomenon that we can nail down in reality?

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And the same thing holds for the qualia.

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The term natural, what did you say? A natural phenomenon.

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It's like this cup is a natural phenomenon because not only can I touch it,

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but I can make, let's say, objective measurements about it.

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And given that, I can have some belief that this is actually a physical object

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in the world that exists in and of itself without needing further subjective experience.

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I think in science, there are concepts that are like the cup,

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which are things, and there are other concepts which are more abstract,

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like for example, the concept of force.

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The concept of force, the concept of pressure, the concept of predator, for example.

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These are ideas or abstractions that are very useful to do science with.

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But you can't really say that they are real things.

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They're defined in functional terms. And I think life is best defined in those

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functional terms rather than being considered a thing like a cup.

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Right. And the same holds for qualia. Yeah. And so now what is your trick?

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So what's this redefinition that would also help us in overcoming these three

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fundamental problems you pointed out earlier?

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So the trick is to suggest that when we think really, try and understand what

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we really mean by having a feel, what we really mean is that we are currently

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interacting with the world in a certain way.

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Let me take the analogy of softness.

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If you were a neurophysiologist, you might go looking in the brain for a neuron

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that generates that softness feel.

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I'm suggesting the following trick. I suggest that if you think about what softness

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really means, take the example of a sponge.

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The softness of a sponge is not a thing that's generated in the brain.

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The softness of a sponge is a way that the sponge behaves when you press on it.

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A sponge is soft when, if you press on it, it squishes under your pressure.

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So the softness is actually nowhere to be found.

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Softness is an abstraction, and the feeling softness means that you are currently

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engaged in an interaction with a sponge that obeys the laws of softness.

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So this is why I call my approach the sensory motor approach.

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It's sensory motor because we We have motor actions, namely pressing on the

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sponge, and we have sensory input, namely the squishiness, the fact that the

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sponge seeds under my pressure.

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And the law, the sensory motor law that's obeyed is the law that describes the softness.

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So the key thing is that we have, let's say, a closed loop now between an agent and its environment.

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And this loop is regulated by certain, let's say, irreducible properties.

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These are the laws you would have in mind. Why do you say irreducible?

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Well, let's say the law is, let's say, a fundamental building block to maintain this dynamic relation.

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Or it describes an irreducible component of that interaction,

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like the squashiness of the sponge. Yeah.

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Would then not be reducible any further. You cannot go below that squashiness to deal with feel.

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No, I'm not following you. I think that the softness of the sponge is a fact

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about the way you can interact with a sponge.

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I wouldn't say it's somehow irreducible. I would say it's just one law that

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describes possible ways of interacting with sponges.

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Yeah, but isn't the field tied to a certain level of that interaction?

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For instance, if I'm squeezing this sponge, that means I'm generating forces with my fingers.

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I have sensation of pressure on my fingertips and of texture in correlation

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with this force that I generate.

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And it's this whole correlated set of actions and reactions and sensory states that now give me my feel.

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I wouldn't say they give the feel. They constitute the feel.

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Yes, that are the feel. field.

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But if I would now go to a lower level of description where you say,

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well, okay, it's this set of muscle synergies that is moving this one finger, that is irrelevant.

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That is not part of the sensory motor law that defines the field.

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That's what I meant with irreducible.

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Below a certain level of description of that law, you don't gain information about the field.

00:18:46.771 --> 00:18:50.231
Yeah, I think the word irreducible is a bit odd there. I would rather say that

00:18:50.231 --> 00:18:55.331
the softness is an abstraction, it's a sort of what the mathematicians might

00:18:55.331 --> 00:18:58.251
call an equivalence class. That's to say, you have.

00:18:59.392 --> 00:19:03.052
Whether you squish it with this finger or that finger, whether you have these

00:19:03.052 --> 00:19:05.212
muscle groups or those muscle groups that are involved,

00:19:05.372 --> 00:19:10.112
it doesn't matter because the concept just requires something more abstract

00:19:10.112 --> 00:19:14.812
to hold, namely the fact that when you exert pressure, it seeds under the pressure.

00:19:15.872 --> 00:19:20.452
It's a sort of higher-level description of all sorts of stuff that's happening

00:19:20.452 --> 00:19:24.792
at the lower level and all sorts of stuff that's happening at the neurophysiological

00:19:24.792 --> 00:19:27.692
level that could be instantiated in a different way.

00:19:27.872 --> 00:19:31.472
For example, it could be a robot with some mechanical gripper,

00:19:31.592 --> 00:19:35.112
or it could be another animal rather than a human.

00:19:35.452 --> 00:19:39.212
In all these cases, you could still apply the same description.

00:19:39.692 --> 00:19:45.232
The problem with the notion of a sensory motor law is that there are many different

00:19:45.232 --> 00:19:49.112
levels that you could describe this law.

00:19:49.412 --> 00:19:55.152
As you say, the pressure could be measured on this finger on that finger.

00:19:56.692 --> 00:20:03.652
There's a bit of ambiguity there as to exactly where you want to put the level of description. Right.

00:20:05.652 --> 00:20:09.412
Couldn't you say that what you now call the sensory motor law is like,

00:20:09.432 --> 00:20:15.572
let's say, the subjective component of an affordance?

00:20:16.372 --> 00:20:21.672
Would you buy that? Would that be reasonable? Or is this a completely different ballpark? Yeah.

00:20:21.932 --> 00:20:26.632
This sensory motor theory has often been compared to Gibson's notion of affordance.

00:20:26.872 --> 00:20:34.852
There certainly is a link there because Gibson's idea of affordance is a relation

00:20:34.852 --> 00:20:37.812
between sensory input and possible motor output.

00:20:39.012 --> 00:20:48.692
But Gibson didn't think about the impact of this notion of affordance for the

00:20:48.692 --> 00:20:52.432
philosophical problem of understanding feel and qualia and sensations.

00:20:52.812 --> 00:20:57.472
But essentially, I mean, one could say it's perhaps the same notion,

00:20:57.572 --> 00:21:00.312
although I would like to take it at an even deeper...

00:21:00.312 --> 00:21:06.792
I don't think, for example, Gibson would have thought that redness is an affordance,

00:21:07.832 --> 00:21:15.372
whereas I would really want to claim that the feel of red is a way of interacting with red things.

00:21:15.892 --> 00:21:21.672
And I don't think Gibson would have gone so far with this notion of affordance. Sure, that's true.

00:21:21.872 --> 00:21:28.952
But you do agree that at some conceptual level, they can be seen as complementary notions.

00:21:29.572 --> 00:21:32.512
Well, they're certainly related, I should say. I don't know if they're complementary.

00:21:33.152 --> 00:21:37.072
But there's an interesting consequence if we would follow that up because in

00:21:37.072 --> 00:21:38.932
the affordance case, it means the object.

00:21:40.252 --> 00:21:46.812
Intrinsically affords let's say a large number of potential action so in some

00:21:46.812 --> 00:21:48.492
sense that means the sponge might also then.

00:21:50.102 --> 00:21:54.802
Possibly to a potential of possible feels as opposed to only one.

00:21:56.062 --> 00:22:00.062
I think this might be an interesting consequence of tying these two things together.

00:22:00.282 --> 00:22:00.742
Yeah, there's a relation there.

00:22:01.682 --> 00:22:06.802
But as you say, the sponge affords a number of different actions that you can

00:22:06.802 --> 00:22:13.262
do with it. But I think Gibson, how would Gibson have, what would Gibson have said?

00:22:15.402 --> 00:22:24.582
He would have used this as a way of describing your perception of the sponge as an object.

00:22:26.062 --> 00:22:33.642
No, right, sure. Whereas I am trying to understand, well, let's say the perception

00:22:33.642 --> 00:22:35.802
of the sponge as a tactile object, okay?

00:22:35.802 --> 00:22:39.302
Whereas what I am trying to characterize is the feel itself,

00:22:39.622 --> 00:22:42.022
I would say somehow the raw feel.

00:22:42.482 --> 00:22:45.802
So I'm not sure exactly what the link, there clearly is some kind of link there.

00:22:46.122 --> 00:22:49.822
But why I was probing there was to see whether there was another way to think

00:22:49.822 --> 00:22:51.722
about what you call the sensor motor law.

00:22:52.422 --> 00:22:56.022
Because a law has, again, its own limitations as a construct.

00:22:56.022 --> 00:23:01.042
Structures, maybe affordance, which seems to describe more really the intrinsic properties of objects,

00:23:01.462 --> 00:23:09.402
could maybe give us an alternative route into this understanding of sensory-motor

00:23:09.402 --> 00:23:11.482
relationships as defining feel.

00:23:11.842 --> 00:23:15.662
But now that we have, so this is the trick in some sense, right?

00:23:15.702 --> 00:23:17.362
This is the trick and now the trick is on the table.

00:23:17.902 --> 00:23:22.102
But that then means that now you have the challenge to show how this trick solves

00:23:22.102 --> 00:23:27.562
these three problems, right? So of the incommunicability of feel,

00:23:27.762 --> 00:23:29.802
the structure and the presence.

00:23:30.022 --> 00:23:33.802
Yeah, exactly. So can you do that? Okay, so let's take the ineffability,

00:23:34.102 --> 00:23:35.382
the non-communicability.

00:23:36.082 --> 00:23:42.462
If you think about, say, the softness of a sponge, it's hard to really describe

00:23:42.462 --> 00:23:47.982
in detail exactly what each of the individual muscle movements you make is.

00:23:48.022 --> 00:23:53.262
When you squish the sponge, it's hard to know exactly which fingers you're using.

00:23:54.882 --> 00:23:59.362
And even at a neurophysiological level, it's hard to say exactly which muscle

00:23:59.362 --> 00:24:00.802
groups are involved and so on.

00:24:02.322 --> 00:24:07.842
And so, whereas you can say there's an abstract description of what's going

00:24:07.842 --> 00:24:15.182
on, the real nitty-gritty of what is going on is something that escapes your cognitive access.

00:24:15.322 --> 00:24:18.282
It's not something that you are aware of.

00:24:18.762 --> 00:24:24.022
So it's clear that while you know that the sponge is squishy and soft,

00:24:26.082 --> 00:24:26.862
you can only.

00:24:29.020 --> 00:24:31.920
Explain why you know this to a certain extent.

00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:37.480
So it makes sense that softness is something ineffable.

00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:43.120
And so my claim would be that if I were able to use this way of thinking about all fields,

00:24:43.300 --> 00:24:46.860
not just softness, but red, say, that I

00:24:46.860 --> 00:24:50.300
could conceive of all

00:24:50.300 --> 00:24:52.960
fields as being sensory remote of

00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:55.880
skills then uh it's clear

00:24:55.880 --> 00:24:58.680
that that the ineffability would fall out

00:24:58.680 --> 00:25:01.360
of this because it's very natural that when you're engaged in a

00:25:01.360 --> 00:25:05.720
skill you cannot describe in detail all the things you do when you engage in

00:25:05.720 --> 00:25:09.560
the skill it's like whistling uh you know you can whistle perfectly well but

00:25:09.560 --> 00:25:13.520
if i asked you exactly what position your tongue is in and how you move it around

00:25:13.520 --> 00:25:17.740
to get a high note or a low note you probably just don't know right but now

00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:19.220
if so some of you're You're saying, well,

00:25:19.320 --> 00:25:25.440
now I can implicitly communicate the feel because I have an operational definition.

00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:28.640
I can just look at what the other person is doing.

00:25:28.700 --> 00:25:33.060
I can sort of now, if I see you squeeze this sponge, in some sense,

00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:36.740
I can now start to relate to your feel because I could take it away from you

00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:41.300
and I could squeeze it myself and get a sense of what that feel would be for you.

00:25:41.600 --> 00:25:44.020
Is that a reasonable interpretation of how you would solve this?

00:25:44.460 --> 00:25:47.460
Well, that's not part of it. That is something, what you said there is more

00:25:47.460 --> 00:25:52.020
to do with kind of empathy and how I can understand other people's feelings.

00:25:52.020 --> 00:25:55.080
Well, it's an expressive memory because, look, I ask you, how does it feel?

00:25:55.280 --> 00:25:57.360
You can say, well, here, take it yourself, squeeze it. Oh, okay,

00:25:57.360 --> 00:25:58.580
okay. I see what you mean, yeah.

00:25:59.860 --> 00:26:07.240
But certainly the ineffability sort of falls out from the idea that the feel

00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:11.500
itself is an abstraction and it's referring to a whole lot of nitty-gritty low-level

00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:14.340
stuff which you just cognitively don't have access to.

00:26:14.840 --> 00:26:18.040
Right, but that's one view on it. So in some sense you're saying,

00:26:18.120 --> 00:26:20.160
well, ineffability, we should just accept.

00:26:21.593 --> 00:26:25.513
In some sense, right? You're saying, look, there are all these low-level processes,

00:26:25.793 --> 00:26:30.673
they don't enter consciousness, so ineffability is just a result of that, and it's not a problem.

00:26:32.273 --> 00:26:37.233
And the low-level processes, they participate in the feel that you have,

00:26:37.393 --> 00:26:41.593
because if they were to change, it would be a different, you would feel them differently.

00:26:42.233 --> 00:26:45.333
So when you squish a sponge, you invoke certain muscle groups.

00:26:45.473 --> 00:26:48.053
When I squish a sponge, I invoke other muscle groups.

00:26:48.233 --> 00:26:54.333
And if suddenly, magically, your and my muscles groups were somehow interchanged,

00:26:54.473 --> 00:26:57.453
the softness would feel different to each of us probably.

00:26:57.773 --> 00:27:01.833
Okay? But that is at a much lower level.

00:27:02.253 --> 00:27:06.913
Right. No, but you're just saying, look, the ineffability should be understood

00:27:06.913 --> 00:27:09.813
in terms of the constituent processes, right?

00:27:09.873 --> 00:27:14.873
Because I follow these nitty-gritty processes that are part of the squeezing

00:27:14.873 --> 00:27:20.413
actions and the sensations that it triggers, these all feed into the feel and

00:27:20.413 --> 00:27:23.373
the feel I can experience, but not these constituent processes.

00:27:23.933 --> 00:27:26.373
So that's why we should just accept this ineffability.

00:27:27.073 --> 00:27:30.453
I don't know if it's true to say you don't feel the constituent processes.

00:27:32.233 --> 00:27:38.033
Well, you will not feel, let's say, every single muscle contraction and so on, right?

00:27:38.033 --> 00:27:41.013
You're not aware of them, but I think that with practice, you know,

00:27:41.073 --> 00:27:45.513
there are these contortionist kind of people who can twitch individual muscles,

00:27:45.793 --> 00:27:52.653
you know, and with yogi type people, they have very exquisite control of certain muscles.

00:27:53.093 --> 00:28:00.673
And they perhaps can, in such cases, modulate the fields, become more diverse.

00:28:01.553 --> 00:28:04.713
So that would be a testable prediction, actually. Yeah. This would mean that

00:28:04.713 --> 00:28:08.753
the feel of a contortionist, of let's say, curled around the chair,

00:28:08.933 --> 00:28:11.633
would be somehow more rich. Exactly.

00:28:12.771 --> 00:28:16.911
So I think this deals with the ineffability, but I think the real mystery that

00:28:16.911 --> 00:28:22.351
approaches, that faces neurophysiologists is the second mystery,

00:28:22.471 --> 00:28:24.591
which is the mystery of… The structure.

00:28:24.891 --> 00:28:27.871
The structure. Before we go to the structure, I want to test this idea that

00:28:27.871 --> 00:28:32.651
ineffability… You're saying, look, ineffability is just an intrinsic property

00:28:32.651 --> 00:28:37.451
of fields because it is like a multi-layered phenomenon, if I understand it correctly.

00:28:37.611 --> 00:28:40.951
Yeah. But now I could say, but there's something interesting that you're doing

00:28:40.951 --> 00:28:48.551
because you are, because you define the field as a sensory motor operation, I can actually see it.

00:28:48.551 --> 00:28:53.211
When you now experience drinking water, I can see you hold a cup and pour the water in your mouth.

00:28:53.531 --> 00:28:58.931
So in that sense, there is now, there is a communicable aspect to your field

00:28:58.931 --> 00:29:00.751
because I can now observe what you do.

00:29:00.851 --> 00:29:03.691
And I could engage, let's say, my mirroring mechanisms to interpret it.

00:29:03.711 --> 00:29:06.411
I could try it myself and see what it feels like and so on. So,

00:29:06.491 --> 00:29:10.191
it's interesting that although you say, okay, it's just intrinsic,

00:29:10.471 --> 00:29:14.431
the ineffability, on the other hand, by defining it in these operational sensory

00:29:14.431 --> 00:29:17.511
motor terms, it becomes communicable to some extent.

00:29:18.031 --> 00:29:20.071
Would you buy that or is that relevant?

00:29:20.811 --> 00:29:24.051
Well, to the sense that we both have a word for softness, say. Exactly.

00:29:24.591 --> 00:29:29.251
And to the extent that you have experienced the softness using your motor groups

00:29:29.251 --> 00:29:33.411
and your fingers and so on, and I have experienced the softness using my motor

00:29:33.411 --> 00:29:35.711
groups and my fingertips.

00:29:36.551 --> 00:29:42.011
When you see me squish the sponge, you can associate that or you can make a

00:29:42.011 --> 00:29:43.251
link between how you do it.

00:29:43.291 --> 00:29:45.851
So it's communicable to a certain extent.

00:29:45.951 --> 00:29:49.571
But of course, the real underlying feel that you have and the real underlying

00:29:49.571 --> 00:29:53.951
feel that I have are perhaps different to the extent that the neurons...

00:29:53.951 --> 00:29:55.691
Of course, that problem remains. But at least.

00:29:56.621 --> 00:30:02.141
It's not a completely closed domain. I have a way in with its limitations.

00:30:02.861 --> 00:30:10.001
So there's internal ineffability, but there's actually externally more of an

00:30:10.001 --> 00:30:12.241
openness now to access qualia.

00:30:12.401 --> 00:30:19.261
But why do you think in views alternative to mine, this was not the case?

00:30:19.521 --> 00:30:23.361
Well, in an alternative view, in your case, you would always insist on saying

00:30:23.361 --> 00:30:27.361
whatever the feel is, it is expressed in this sensor-modal loop of the world.

00:30:27.881 --> 00:30:30.041
Well, that means overt behavior.

00:30:30.641 --> 00:30:34.761
In an alternative view, qualia are very much experiential states.

00:30:34.981 --> 00:30:36.821
Let's look at the wound or something. And you would say, well,

00:30:36.861 --> 00:30:40.221
we should just rely on introspection. People have to report to me because I have no access.

00:30:40.721 --> 00:30:43.761
You're saying I have access because I can look at the sensor-modal loops.

00:30:44.141 --> 00:30:47.281
Because there is an objective. Yeah, there's an overt expression. Okay.

00:30:47.481 --> 00:30:52.481
This would be consequent. And I think also a contrast between these two approaches.

00:30:52.781 --> 00:30:59.521
You're right. In my case, there always has to be ultimately an objective description

00:30:59.521 --> 00:31:05.001
in terms of visible behavior, behavior that you yourself can observe and therefore

00:31:05.001 --> 00:31:06.081
that others can observe.

00:31:06.221 --> 00:31:11.221
Exactly. So that means the interpersonal ineffability problem,

00:31:11.421 --> 00:31:14.561
which is part of the heart problem as well… …is perhaps slightly less hard.

00:31:16.021 --> 00:31:20.481
You don't solve it, but you partially overcome it. You reduce its significance.

00:31:20.501 --> 00:31:21.821
Maybe you're right about that. That's interesting.

00:31:22.281 --> 00:31:28.441
Okay. So the second point was the structure, right? The structure of the feel.

00:31:28.641 --> 00:31:35.961
So how do you explain why, for example, red can be compared to other colors,

00:31:36.001 --> 00:31:39.181
but it cannot be compared to the smell of onion, for example?

00:31:39.181 --> 00:31:42.801
If you have a physiological approach, then you'd say, well, are these neurons

00:31:42.801 --> 00:31:48.341
in the brain that deal with color, and those neurons in the brain that are to do with smells?

00:31:49.601 --> 00:31:52.661
And they produce completely different

00:31:52.661 --> 00:31:56.761
sensations, and they just can't be compared. And I say, well, why?

00:31:57.221 --> 00:31:59.401
Why do they produce completely different sensations? conversations,

00:31:59.441 --> 00:32:03.741
and you're back to an infinite regress of possible questions about why this,

00:32:04.481 --> 00:32:09.201
type of neurotransmitter or this type of oscillation would produce smells rather than colors.

00:32:09.541 --> 00:32:14.761
Whereas in the sensory-motor approach, you solve the problem because the description

00:32:14.761 --> 00:32:23.381
you use to describe the feel of red or the smell of onion must be couched in terms of

00:32:23.461 --> 00:32:25.781
a language that is, as we were just saying,

00:32:25.961 --> 00:32:31.821
is objectively measurable and corresponds to motions you can do in your environment,

00:32:32.061 --> 00:32:35.621
changes in the incoming sensory information as a function of these motions,

00:32:35.881 --> 00:32:41.481
and it is potentially objectively describable in a physicist's terms.

00:32:42.081 --> 00:32:48.461
And so, for example, in the case of softness, let's just take the example,

00:32:48.481 --> 00:32:50.641
say, of feeling feeling softness and hardness.

00:32:51.001 --> 00:32:53.741
Clearly, there, there's a link, because something that is soft,

00:32:53.861 --> 00:32:58.121
you squish it and it seeds under your pressure, whereas if it's hard,

00:32:58.241 --> 00:33:00.261
you squish it and it doesn't seed under your pressure.

00:33:00.381 --> 00:33:04.341
So there, we seem to have a linear dimension going from things that seed under

00:33:04.341 --> 00:33:06.081
your pressure and things that don't seed under your pressure.

00:33:06.201 --> 00:33:10.421
So in the language of a physicist, or the language of objective observation,

00:33:10.841 --> 00:33:17.841
I can clearly see why it is that softness should have a linear dimension going from very soft to very.

00:33:18.938 --> 00:33:25.578
But if we were arguing in terms of neurophysiological excitations, saying.

00:33:27.158 --> 00:33:31.818
For example, that softness corresponds to a low activation of some neural group

00:33:31.818 --> 00:33:36.178
and hardness corresponds to high activation, it's just not obvious why it should

00:33:36.178 --> 00:33:38.098
be that way around rather than the other way around.

00:33:38.818 --> 00:33:44.898
So we're back into the infinite regress. So with this view, with the sensory-motor

00:33:44.898 --> 00:33:52.398
view, it becomes clear how to make the link between dimensions of sensory experience and,

00:33:53.738 --> 00:33:55.618
objective sensory motor laws.

00:33:55.878 --> 00:34:01.898
We can also explain why, for example, certain sensations cannot be compared among themselves.

00:34:02.238 --> 00:34:07.318
For example, if I compare the softness feel to the feel of whistling,

00:34:07.718 --> 00:34:12.798
there's not much you can say about the objective sensory motor laws involved.

00:34:12.798 --> 00:34:17.198
And so it seems natural that there should be no real possible comparison between

00:34:17.198 --> 00:34:21.818
the two, just as there's no possible real comparison between the redness of

00:34:21.818 --> 00:34:22.978
red and the smell of an onion.

00:34:24.318 --> 00:34:28.258
Yeah, but aren't you in some sense then saying, look, well,

00:34:28.338 --> 00:34:34.318
structure's not a problem because there is no common framework for structure

00:34:34.318 --> 00:34:39.898
beyond then the sensory motor laws that I can use to describe feel.

00:34:41.516 --> 00:34:44.516
Sorry, there's no common framework? You seem to throw away a little bit this

00:34:44.516 --> 00:34:48.196
notion of structure, right? Because you say, look, I can scale this in different ways.

00:34:48.276 --> 00:34:51.396
And it's something that doesn't give me information on what the feel is.

00:34:51.836 --> 00:34:55.976
Because the only information I really have access to is this sensor motor law.

00:34:56.856 --> 00:35:02.296
Right? So I feel, so your criticism of structure was really to say,

00:35:02.316 --> 00:35:08.016
look, there is no, let's say, common frame of reference, right?

00:35:08.016 --> 00:35:12.336
If you look at different kinds of feel across different modalities, for instance.

00:35:13.256 --> 00:35:17.596
Or I should just use your example of intensity and its neural correlates.

00:35:17.596 --> 00:35:21.036
Well, it could go up or down with respect to intensity in the auditory domain.

00:35:21.616 --> 00:35:27.556
Either way, it doesn't answer the structure of the feel. The neural representation is just a code.

00:35:27.756 --> 00:35:33.596
And there's no reason why this type of code should correspond to loud sounds rather than sound.

00:35:33.596 --> 00:35:38.076
So the structure of the feel does not map into a straightforward way,

00:35:38.176 --> 00:35:44.896
into some sort of the organization of the structure that might give rise to

00:35:44.896 --> 00:35:46.496
it. The neural structure.

00:35:46.576 --> 00:35:50.196
If we're trying to make a neural explanation, we would have these difficulties

00:35:50.196 --> 00:35:57.076
because there's no way of mapping the structure of sensory experience to neural structures. Exactly.

00:35:57.456 --> 00:36:01.056
So now you're saying, or the logic would then be that you say,

00:36:01.116 --> 00:36:06.116
well, but the structure or feel does map onto the structure of sensory motor

00:36:06.116 --> 00:36:08.236
interaction, the sensory motor laws.

00:36:08.456 --> 00:36:10.936
Right. I'm saying there's a better chance of making this link.

00:36:11.096 --> 00:36:15.816
Can you give me an example of that mapping and how it can capture that structure?

00:36:16.396 --> 00:36:19.316
So for example, that was what I was trying to do with softness.

00:36:19.316 --> 00:36:22.216
And I was saying, well, I can explain the...

00:36:23.827 --> 00:36:28.547
I can explain why soft things feel soft rather than feeling hard, okay?

00:36:28.747 --> 00:36:33.487
And it's a linear dimension going from soft to hard, and I can explain why it's

00:36:33.487 --> 00:36:35.207
that way rather than being the other way around.

00:36:35.287 --> 00:36:39.567
Because what we mean by something being soft is that it seeds under your pressure,

00:36:39.667 --> 00:36:44.447
whereas what you mean by something being hard is that it does not seed under your pressure.

00:36:44.587 --> 00:36:48.507
So if I'm arthritic and I have difficulties to close my fingers with a certain

00:36:48.507 --> 00:36:51.867
speed, I would experience a sponge as being more hard.

00:36:52.027 --> 00:36:54.407
Perhaps, yes, yes, yes. That would be the prediction. Yeah.

00:36:55.007 --> 00:36:59.107
Well, if you had not yet adapted, if you suddenly became arthritic,

00:36:59.127 --> 00:37:03.927
perhaps over time when you adapt to the fact that you're arthritic.

00:37:04.547 --> 00:37:13.067
But then could you predict the structure of feel from the structure of the sensor-motor interactions?

00:37:13.527 --> 00:37:15.927
Well, that would have to be my prediction, exactly, my hypothesis.

00:37:16.227 --> 00:37:17.687
I would have to… Okay, an example.

00:37:18.227 --> 00:37:22.067
Well, softness. But for instance, you also talked about, let's say,

00:37:22.107 --> 00:37:23.187
color, for instance, right?

00:37:23.367 --> 00:37:30.707
Yeah. So don't your studies in the psychophysics of color perception give you

00:37:30.707 --> 00:37:36.267
a second example of how structure of sensory interaction maps onto feel?

00:37:36.567 --> 00:37:41.327
Right. So color, of course, is the philosopher's prototype of a feel.

00:37:41.767 --> 00:37:48.707
And so And so the most important thing for my theory to do is to apply it to color.

00:37:48.787 --> 00:37:53.867
If I could really explain the redness of red, that would be a real victory for my approach.

00:37:54.347 --> 00:37:59.627
And although it does seem rather surprising to think about color in terms of

00:37:59.627 --> 00:38:02.487
sensory motor laws, in terms of things you do.

00:38:03.387 --> 00:38:11.607
Taking this approach has given me some interesting insights.

00:38:11.607 --> 00:38:17.487
I have a paper with a mathematician, David Filippona is his name,

00:38:17.647 --> 00:38:21.227
a paper in visual neuroscience,

00:38:21.507 --> 00:38:26.427
something like that, where I suggest taking the sensory motor approach to color,

00:38:26.527 --> 00:38:34.627
and I'm able to make some really interesting predictions about the redness of red,

00:38:34.747 --> 00:38:37.307
which are very surprising.

00:38:37.307 --> 00:38:41.007
So the idea is that instead of thinking of color as something that just comes

00:38:41.007 --> 00:38:43.987
into your eyes and creates a sensation.

00:38:47.197 --> 00:38:51.437
By generating the feel of red somehow. The idea is to say that what you mean

00:38:51.437 --> 00:38:57.337
by the redness of red is a law that describes the way you interact with red things.

00:38:57.737 --> 00:38:59.597
And so what might such a law be?

00:39:01.437 --> 00:39:04.717
Such a law might be the fact that, for example, when you take a red surface

00:39:04.717 --> 00:39:08.137
and you move it around under different lights, the light coming into your eye

00:39:08.137 --> 00:39:10.837
changes in certain predictable ways.

00:39:11.477 --> 00:39:17.157
What we were able to do, very surprisingly, is show that certain surfaces,

00:39:17.417 --> 00:39:22.237
the laws that they obey, are very particular.

00:39:22.437 --> 00:39:30.237
In particular, red and green and blue and yellow are surfaces whose laws of

00:39:30.237 --> 00:39:33.577
behavior, when you move them around under different lights, are particularly simple.

00:39:33.917 --> 00:39:39.597
This explains why red, yellow, green, and blue are what are often called focal

00:39:39.597 --> 00:39:41.217
colors colors, or basic colors.

00:39:42.317 --> 00:39:45.877
This is something that you might think is predicted by neurophysiology,

00:39:46.097 --> 00:39:50.837
because a lot of neurophysiologists would say, yes, well, we know already that

00:39:50.837 --> 00:39:54.557
there is a blue-green system in the retina, sorry.

00:39:55.797 --> 00:39:58.817
A blue-yellow system and a

00:39:58.817 --> 00:40:02.617
red-green system, as well as a black-white system in the neural pathways.

00:40:02.957 --> 00:40:08.097
Obviously, it makes sense to think that red, yellow, green, and blue should

00:40:08.097 --> 00:40:11.537
somehow be special colors because you have these special systems in the brain.

00:40:12.237 --> 00:40:17.537
But it turns out, if you look in detail at the excitation of the blue,

00:40:17.597 --> 00:40:24.417
yellow, and red-green systems, when they are maximally activated in the blue,

00:40:25.177 --> 00:40:29.257
direction or in the red direction or the green or the yellow direction,

00:40:29.497 --> 00:40:34.337
these are not the The case is when you actually see blue, green, red, and yellow.

00:40:35.577 --> 00:40:40.337
So the neurophysiology does not actually coincide with the sensation.

00:40:41.597 --> 00:40:44.177
But then I could say maybe the channels are mislabeled.

00:40:44.784 --> 00:40:49.244
It's some other combination of activity that will give you then this phenomenal

00:40:49.244 --> 00:40:52.704
experience of color. Indeed. That is indeed what color scientists do.

00:40:53.064 --> 00:41:00.084
The colors that are considered to be pure are what color scientists call unique hues.

00:41:00.584 --> 00:41:06.304
They go around measuring unique hues, and they have been trying over the last

00:41:06.304 --> 00:41:12.364
decades to understand what combinations of the known neurophysiological color

00:41:12.364 --> 00:41:17.084
channels should be used in order to generate the unique hues that are observed.

00:41:17.404 --> 00:41:23.424
In order to accurately generate the predictions for unique red,

00:41:23.504 --> 00:41:26.864
green, blue, and yellow, you have to have complicated, non-linear combinations

00:41:26.864 --> 00:41:31.104
of the cone excitations.

00:41:32.824 --> 00:41:36.804
Obviously, it's going to be possible by making some non-linear combination to

00:41:36.804 --> 00:41:40.344
predict unique hues, but you have no a priori reason to do so.

00:41:40.344 --> 00:41:43.764
And the question is, well, why is it this combination rather than that combination

00:41:43.764 --> 00:41:45.044
that gives you those unique cues?

00:41:45.204 --> 00:41:49.064
Whereas I'm actually able, with David Philippe Poudin in our paper,

00:41:49.184 --> 00:41:53.864
we're actually able to predict the unique cues without any parameter adjustments,

00:41:54.344 --> 00:41:59.304
without any appeal to nonlinear combinations of neurophysiological channels.

00:41:59.724 --> 00:42:04.984
Our paper actually shows precise prediction of unique cues without any such

00:42:04.984 --> 00:42:07.124
arbitrary parameter fitting.

00:42:07.124 --> 00:42:14.724
But now, if we talk about the experience of color and we try to relate that

00:42:14.724 --> 00:42:19.444
to this notion of the sensory motor contingencies that you're exposed to,

00:42:19.764 --> 00:42:25.684
does it mean that I only experience color when I actually am moving my eyes?

00:42:25.684 --> 00:42:30.644
Ah, so that's a fundamental misconception.

00:42:31.124 --> 00:42:36.884
When people hear me talk and read my theory, a lot of people think that it just

00:42:36.884 --> 00:42:40.484
can't be true because obviously you can see colors without moving.

00:42:40.584 --> 00:42:42.024
Obviously you can perceive without moving.

00:42:42.184 --> 00:42:45.824
And that would be to misunderstand completely the theory. The theory doesn't

00:42:45.824 --> 00:42:50.104
say you have to perceive in order to, you don't have to move in order to perceive.

00:42:51.164 --> 00:42:56.024
The theory says you have to have at some time in your life moved in order to perceive.

00:42:56.444 --> 00:43:04.164
Because in order to perceive the sensory input you're getting at a particular moment,

00:43:04.544 --> 00:43:10.424
you have to be able to categorize it as being part of some sensory motor law

00:43:10.424 --> 00:43:12.124
that you have previously experienced.

00:43:12.684 --> 00:43:16.464
So it suffices to have learned the laws previously,

00:43:16.704 --> 00:43:20.004
and then when you get a sensory input that is compatible with one of the laws,

00:43:20.124 --> 00:43:25.804
well then you identify it as corresponding to that law and so what you perceive

00:43:25.804 --> 00:43:28.064
corresponds to that particular law. Okay.

00:43:29.224 --> 00:43:37.504
So that would mean that a fully immobilized advanced perceptual agent,

00:43:39.113 --> 00:43:44.753
with immobilized eyes from the moment of birth would not be able to develop

00:43:44.753 --> 00:43:46.673
color vision or their feel of color?

00:43:47.833 --> 00:43:52.913
I think if it were in a totally static world also, I think it would not develop

00:43:52.913 --> 00:43:54.733
the notion of color as we know it.

00:43:54.793 --> 00:43:58.793
Because for us, what we mean by red is a surface that behaves in certain ways

00:43:58.793 --> 00:43:59.993
under different lights.

00:44:00.293 --> 00:44:05.093
But if you're not able to move at all, and the world doesn't move,

00:44:05.253 --> 00:44:11.113
then red surfaces can reflect different lights into your eye depending on what

00:44:11.113 --> 00:44:13.233
light is illuminating the red surface.

00:44:13.373 --> 00:44:16.873
You illuminate a red surface with purely blue light, then the light coming into

00:44:16.873 --> 00:44:18.413
your eye is blue and not red.

00:44:18.613 --> 00:44:23.593
And an agent that had never moved and could not move and whose environment never

00:44:23.593 --> 00:44:27.093
changed would perceive it as blue and not red.

00:44:27.333 --> 00:44:32.653
Would your alternative also consider the possibility that not all movements

00:44:32.653 --> 00:44:35.053
have to be overt, but they can be like virtual?

00:44:35.213 --> 00:44:40.953
Let's say I inspect a visual scene by internally moving, let's say,

00:44:40.993 --> 00:44:44.953
a spotlight of attention without really relying on eye movements.

00:44:44.953 --> 00:44:49.073
Well, actually, I mean, no, I wouldn't say that.

00:44:49.153 --> 00:44:55.993
I would say that what we mean by perceiving red really requires us to actually

00:44:55.993 --> 00:45:00.313
have moved at some time and previously,

00:45:00.493 --> 00:45:06.013
and to associate the incoming sensory input with what we know about the laws

00:45:06.013 --> 00:45:07.273
that had previously occurred.

00:45:08.373 --> 00:45:18.073
I don't want to use virtual movements at all in this, because I really think

00:45:18.073 --> 00:45:21.493
that what we mean by sensory perception involves real motion.

00:45:23.297 --> 00:45:27.857
But then also combined with memory. Oh, yes, yes. Prior knowledge. Exactly.

00:45:28.457 --> 00:45:31.957
Okay, so now we have an idea of structure.

00:45:33.817 --> 00:45:39.877
So how about the presence of the sensory motor contingencies or feel?

00:45:40.197 --> 00:45:48.417
Okay, so the real what is it like of a sensory experience is really what the

00:45:48.417 --> 00:45:49.917
philosophers think is the great mystery.

00:45:49.917 --> 00:45:52.597
Why some things have something it's like whereas

00:45:52.597 --> 00:45:56.457
other other other sensations other

00:45:56.457 --> 00:45:59.437
sensory inputs don't have anything it's like like for

00:45:59.437 --> 00:46:05.197
example vestibular input or glucose level or oxygen level in my blood i don't

00:46:05.197 --> 00:46:09.797
feel them in the same sense as i feel the redness of red this is this is perhaps

00:46:09.797 --> 00:46:14.117
the great mystery of of consciousness and i think the sensory motor approach

00:46:14.117 --> 00:46:16.517
provides an answer in the following way.

00:46:16.697 --> 00:46:21.137
The idea is, let's think about what we really mean when we say that there's

00:46:21.137 --> 00:46:22.837
something it's like to have a feel.

00:46:23.517 --> 00:46:29.697
Of course, when we think about what we mean by it, in the sensory motor approach,

00:46:29.857 --> 00:46:33.037
we have to think about it in terms of the sensory motor interaction with the

00:46:33.037 --> 00:46:34.017
environment that's involved.

00:46:34.717 --> 00:46:41.297
If you really ask yourself why there's something it's like to squish a sponge,

00:46:41.517 --> 00:46:48.857
whereas there is no similar sensory presence to sponge squishing when you're thinking about it.

00:46:49.317 --> 00:46:53.277
So if I'm thinking about squishing a sponge, there's nothing much it's like.

00:46:53.357 --> 00:46:57.837
It doesn't have the same sensory presence as when I'm actually doing it. So why is this?

00:46:58.057 --> 00:47:01.817
And the answer is that when I'm really squishing the sponge,

00:47:02.017 --> 00:47:05.217
well, I really am moving. I really am engaged with it.

00:47:05.357 --> 00:47:10.877
So what does this mean? It means that my body is involved in this motion.

00:47:11.357 --> 00:47:25.397
It means that the changes that I affect in my motor activity,

00:47:26.177 --> 00:47:28.717
create immediate consequences on the sensory input.

00:47:28.857 --> 00:47:35.517
Whereas if I'm thinking about sponge squishing, I can think as much as I like.

00:47:35.597 --> 00:47:39.377
It doesn't actually change the sensory input coming into my fingertips.

00:47:40.217 --> 00:47:44.917
Really, what characterizes my real interaction with the world is the fact that

00:47:44.917 --> 00:47:48.117
making bodily motions changes the sensory input.

00:47:48.257 --> 00:47:54.057
That's one thing that distinguishes real sensory input from imagined sensory

00:47:54.057 --> 00:47:58.237
input or from thoughts or hallucinations, for example.

00:47:58.237 --> 00:48:01.957
However, there is this literature on, for instance,

00:48:02.037 --> 00:48:07.037
the effect of imagery on peripheral aspects of the nervous system where you

00:48:07.037 --> 00:48:11.317
might see that, let's say, the imagery of certain actions might lead to excitability

00:48:11.317 --> 00:48:13.297
of motor neurons in the spinal cord.

00:48:13.817 --> 00:48:20.517
So in some sense, these higher-level top-down processes can percolate into the

00:48:20.517 --> 00:48:22.637
periphery, but that you would then exclude.

00:48:23.621 --> 00:48:27.821
As, let's say, a substitute of such a sensory-motor contingency.

00:48:27.901 --> 00:48:30.301
It has to really be at the sensory front end.

00:48:30.781 --> 00:48:36.041
I think, yes. I think that what really characterizes a sensory interaction with

00:48:36.041 --> 00:48:39.861
the world, one of the things that characterizes it is what I call bodiliness,

00:48:40.001 --> 00:48:46.881
namely the fact that when you move your body, there's a dramatic change in the sensory input.

00:48:47.561 --> 00:48:51.741
Even if, as you say, when you're imagining things, it may change the nature

00:48:51.741 --> 00:48:57.181
of your sensory receptors for example, that is not a test of reality.

00:48:58.141 --> 00:49:02.961
It's not a real test of reality. A real test of reality is when you really do

00:49:02.961 --> 00:49:04.761
move that things change.

00:49:05.421 --> 00:49:08.361
In fact, I think you can think about dreaming.

00:49:08.621 --> 00:49:13.441
How do you know that you're dreaming rather than that you're not dreaming?

00:49:13.621 --> 00:49:16.981
Well, what you do is in your dream, you say to yourself, well,

00:49:17.081 --> 00:49:18.201
I'm going to turn on the light.

00:49:18.281 --> 00:49:22.701
And if the light really does turn on, then you're likely not dreaming.

00:49:23.041 --> 00:49:25.881
But if the light doesn't turn on, well, then you are dreaming.

00:49:26.101 --> 00:49:28.921
So it's kind of, bodiliness is a reality test.

00:49:29.601 --> 00:49:33.841
Okay, but then are you saying that imagined states have no feel,

00:49:34.041 --> 00:49:38.081
or imagined states have a reduced feel by virtue of accessing memory?

00:49:38.841 --> 00:49:42.941
Yeah, imagined states have less sensory presence.

00:49:45.091 --> 00:49:50.031
Okay. But then you also have this grabbiness and you have muddiness and you

00:49:50.031 --> 00:49:52.711
have insubordinate-ness.

00:49:53.111 --> 00:49:53.331
Right.

00:49:53.751 --> 00:49:56.731
Right? So what does it actually really mean?

00:49:56.971 --> 00:50:04.711
Okay. So I have four concepts that I invoke in order to characterize what it

00:50:04.711 --> 00:50:08.151
is like of real interactions, sensory interactions with the world.

00:50:08.371 --> 00:50:11.971
The one that I just mentioned is muddiness, the fact that sensory input changes

00:50:11.971 --> 00:50:13.271
dramatically when you move your body.

00:50:13.271 --> 00:50:16.711
Another thing that's really important is, well,

00:50:16.811 --> 00:50:21.091
no, another thing that's perhaps not quite so important is what I call insubordinateness,

00:50:21.111 --> 00:50:26.631
which is that even though it's true that sensory input changes systematically

00:50:26.631 --> 00:50:29.211
and dramatically when I move my body around,

00:50:29.611 --> 00:50:34.671
there can be changes in sensory input when I don't move my body around.

00:50:34.891 --> 00:50:41.591
So the world is insubordinateness, like a mouse can run across the floor and

00:50:41.591 --> 00:50:46.211
change sensory input coming into my eyes without me moving my body.

00:50:46.551 --> 00:50:52.831
So the external world imposes itself upon my sensors because it has a life of its own.

00:50:53.011 --> 00:50:56.711
It's not me that is completely controlling it through my bodiliness.

00:50:57.131 --> 00:51:07.971
Although my body motions do create a very strongly correlated correlated change in sensory input.

00:51:08.111 --> 00:51:12.631
It is not totally subordinate to my body motions because the world has a life

00:51:12.631 --> 00:51:16.611
of its own, and it can create some input that is independent of my bodily motions.

00:51:16.891 --> 00:51:19.491
So that's insubordinateness. It's another characteristic.

00:51:19.931 --> 00:51:25.191
For example, proprioception does not have this insubordinateness.

00:51:25.631 --> 00:51:29.511
That's one reason why I think we don't feel our proprioception.

00:51:30.271 --> 00:51:34.911
Proprioceptive sensors are very rich sensory input to our brains,

00:51:34.911 --> 00:51:39.051
and yet we don't consider them to be a sensory modality in the same sense as touch.

00:51:39.471 --> 00:51:41.831
Why is this? And I think the reason is that,

00:51:42.508 --> 00:51:46.628
Whereas proprioception has a high degree of bodiliness in that whenever I move,

00:51:46.708 --> 00:51:49.188
proprioceptive input is systematically correlated.

00:51:49.448 --> 00:51:53.588
So it has high bodiliness, but it doesn't have any insubordinateness because

00:51:53.588 --> 00:51:54.928
it doesn't have a life of its own.

00:51:54.988 --> 00:51:58.248
Proprioception is determined completely by my voluntary motions.

00:51:59.008 --> 00:52:01.668
So having just bodiliness is

00:52:01.668 --> 00:52:06.668
not enough to characterize real information coming from the outside world.

00:52:06.968 --> 00:52:12.968
Right. And then there's grabbiness. Yes. So grabbiness is another fact about our sensory systems.

00:52:13.508 --> 00:52:20.328
It is the fact that when some sudden event occurs in the visual field or in the auditory canal.

00:52:21.408 --> 00:52:26.228
My attention is immediately and incontrovertibly diverted to this,

00:52:26.308 --> 00:52:29.088
and my cognitive resources are attracted to this.

00:52:29.088 --> 00:52:34.008
And I think low-level sensory systems are hardwired up in the brain so as to

00:52:34.008 --> 00:52:38.428
interfere with cognitive processes and cause attention to be oriented towards them.

00:52:38.568 --> 00:52:42.828
And this, I think, this grabbiness, this ability to capture our attention is

00:52:42.828 --> 00:52:49.168
a particularity of the five main sensory modalities which is not possessed by

00:52:49.168 --> 00:52:52.248
other sensory input like the glucose level in my blood,

00:52:52.268 --> 00:52:56.828
for example, can change dramatically and it doesn't kind of stop me thinking.

00:52:57.028 --> 00:53:02.528
It may make me lose consciousness, but that stops me thinking in a rather indirect way.

00:53:02.808 --> 00:53:07.388
Whereas seeing a flash of light or hearing a loud sound causes my attention

00:53:07.388 --> 00:53:14.328
to go to the loud sound or the light and process it, whereas the glucose level

00:53:14.328 --> 00:53:17.708
isn't connected to my higher-level cognitive processing in the same way.

00:53:18.148 --> 00:53:24.188
So that's grabbiness. Okay, but would you exclude that cognitive states can have grabbiness?

00:53:24.848 --> 00:53:29.988
Aha, yeah. So you might think of painful thoughts, for example, or obsessive thoughts.

00:53:30.148 --> 00:53:35.128
And indeed, I think it's true that once thoughts get to be so grabby that you

00:53:35.128 --> 00:53:38.468
cannot prevent yourself from orienting your attention towards them,

00:53:38.608 --> 00:53:41.968
that at that stage, people begin to say that thoughts have a feel.

00:53:42.528 --> 00:53:46.948
But if I ask you to think about red, I don't think that you would say that it

00:53:46.948 --> 00:53:51.308
has the same kind of feel as real red, when you're looking at real red has.

00:53:52.028 --> 00:54:00.028
But still, if a thought can have this grabbiness without a direct sensory motor.

00:54:00.788 --> 00:54:03.548
Contingency that it pertains to, how do you account for it?

00:54:03.828 --> 00:54:08.448
Well, I think that it will be an experience of a different type.

00:54:08.588 --> 00:54:10.068
It won't be a sensory experience.

00:54:10.268 --> 00:54:14.608
It will be an experience, but it won't have the same kind of sensory presence

00:54:14.608 --> 00:54:20.328
as do the experiences deriving from the five sensory modality.

00:54:20.328 --> 00:54:24.368
It might have what you call a presence, given that it has this grabbiness, yeah.

00:54:24.708 --> 00:54:28.688
But by virtue of memory again, or by virtue of something else? Ah.

00:54:30.528 --> 00:54:32.028
Oh, that's an interesting question.

00:54:35.703 --> 00:54:43.603
Yes, I would imagine that, as in the case of feels for red or for softness,

00:54:43.963 --> 00:54:53.023
your prior knowledge of having previously been engaging in the environment in this particular way,

00:54:53.083 --> 00:54:57.883
and the fact that you have cognitively characterized that as being an experience

00:54:57.883 --> 00:55:02.123
of what you call red or an experience of what you call soft, those facts,

00:55:02.303 --> 00:55:08.523
in other words, that prior knowledge and memory play a role in categorizing your experiences.

00:55:08.743 --> 00:55:12.463
So in the same way, if you're having a thought experience, like a painful thought

00:55:12.463 --> 00:55:17.963
that you have previously had, and categorize that such, that undoubtedly that

00:55:17.963 --> 00:55:21.723
will also play a role in determining the nature of that experience. Why not?

00:55:22.123 --> 00:55:27.443
Right. And for instance, I might feel right now extremely jealous because of

00:55:27.443 --> 00:55:28.363
your beautiful sandals.

00:55:28.963 --> 00:55:33.083
So would this emotion of jealousy have grabbiness in the same way?

00:55:33.083 --> 00:55:36.703
Yeah, well now, emotions is something that I really haven't thought about very much.

00:55:36.843 --> 00:55:41.263
I think that, you know, Damasio and Ledoux, for example, have written a lot

00:55:41.263 --> 00:55:50.083
about emotions, and they talk about how the bodily functions are activated.

00:55:53.680 --> 00:56:00.140
When you have these emotions. And I think those really are bodily functions

00:56:00.140 --> 00:56:05.820
related to visceral functioning, indeed, that are modified when you have these emotions.

00:56:06.020 --> 00:56:10.740
So your jealousy may make you sweat or make your heart beat or make you flush or something.

00:56:11.080 --> 00:56:15.760
And the question is, what is the feel of this jealousy?

00:56:16.600 --> 00:56:21.020
How could you describe it? And so my approach, I haven't really looked at it

00:56:21.020 --> 00:56:26.920
in detail, but I don't see why my sensory-motor-type approach could not also

00:56:26.920 --> 00:56:29.220
apply to emotions like this.

00:56:29.600 --> 00:56:36.700
I think, essentially, what I would want to say is that the trick that I've used

00:56:36.700 --> 00:56:43.700
to get rid of the philosophical problem of qualia in understanding sensory Sensory

00:56:43.700 --> 00:56:48.580
experience is a trick of stopping reification.

00:56:48.960 --> 00:56:53.860
That's to say, of no longer looking in the brain for something that generates the experience.

00:56:54.220 --> 00:57:00.020
And I think that would be the key to approaching the problem of emotions also.

00:57:00.140 --> 00:57:04.920
So instead of saying that something generates the jealousy or something generates

00:57:04.920 --> 00:57:11.080
the fear, what I would say is what we mean by fear is a mode of interaction with our environment.

00:57:11.080 --> 00:57:18.680
It means that we are in a state where we are ready to run or our bodies have

00:57:18.680 --> 00:57:23.040
gone into a different mode of functioning where our hearts are beating faster

00:57:23.040 --> 00:57:26.120
and maybe our viscera have slowed down their functioning.

00:57:26.120 --> 00:57:31.960
And the experience of fear is just constituted by all those things.

00:57:32.100 --> 00:57:36.500
And to search for something that generates the experience would be the same

00:57:36.500 --> 00:57:41.980
kind of philosophical error that has been previously made for life and for fear. Right, I understand.

00:57:42.340 --> 00:57:45.520
But now, isn't there a risk that.

00:57:47.181 --> 00:57:50.261
By taking this very operational stance, in the end, you always have to bring

00:57:50.261 --> 00:57:53.761
it back to some sensory motor contingency that exists between the agent and

00:57:53.761 --> 00:57:57.181
the environment at some point in time. So everything has to be reduced to that.

00:57:57.801 --> 00:58:00.401
Don't you run the risk of ending up in the same position as,

00:58:00.421 --> 00:58:06.081
let's say, the behaviorists that in some way wanted to minimize the role of

00:58:06.081 --> 00:58:08.021
internal states beyond,

00:58:08.361 --> 00:58:13.561
let's say, reflexes, sensory states and reactions to these sensory states.

00:58:14.461 --> 00:58:19.681
But in the end, it actually became a very complicated story that collapsed on

00:58:19.681 --> 00:58:21.461
its own complexity because in the end,

00:58:21.481 --> 00:58:28.441
you started to talk about internalized sensory motor or reflex loops and it

00:58:28.441 --> 00:58:34.081
was really difficult to keep this coherent with respect to let's say the whole

00:58:34.081 --> 00:58:35.721
domain of animal learning.

00:58:35.981 --> 00:58:40.521
So isn't that also a risk for this approach you take now because you are committing

00:58:40.521 --> 00:58:43.741
yourself to take a look at the emotions, right? You have to go to this somatic

00:58:43.741 --> 00:58:47.941
interpretation of emotions to get the bodiliness in it. And you can bring it

00:58:47.941 --> 00:58:49.201
back to sensory motor contingencies.

00:58:49.721 --> 00:58:53.561
But alternative views on emotion, of course, we don't really know what the truth is.

00:58:53.641 --> 00:58:58.881
But an alternative view might be, look, there are these intrinsic systems in

00:58:58.881 --> 00:59:04.001
the nervous system completely dedicated to this kind of behavioral or the emotional expression,

00:59:04.241 --> 00:59:08.501
the emotional experience, and also the regulation of different components of

00:59:08.501 --> 00:59:10.121
the nervous system using these emotional states.

00:59:10.121 --> 00:59:16.641
So aren't you putting yourself too much in this corner of having to redefine

00:59:16.641 --> 00:59:20.521
everything in sensory-motor terms, leaving little space for,

00:59:20.641 --> 00:59:25.681
let's say, additional phenomena to still exist as part of the phenomena you want to explain?

00:59:26.061 --> 00:59:31.441
Okay, so your question, I think, really can be decomposed into two parts.

00:59:31.621 --> 00:59:37.021
The first part is, is what I've been talking about just a modernized form of behaviorism?

00:59:37.792 --> 00:59:40.572
First question. And second question is, how do I deal with emotions?

00:59:41.052 --> 00:59:46.512
And so I think with regard to behaviorism, I think a lot of readers of my papers

00:59:46.512 --> 00:59:51.192
have thought that this is just another glorified version of behaviorism.

00:59:51.212 --> 00:59:55.352
But that would be a terrible error, because I really think that cognitive processing

00:59:55.352 --> 01:00:01.072
and attention, for example, are really important in my theory.

01:00:01.192 --> 01:00:05.232
There are indeed the sensory motor loops involved in squishing the sponge.

01:00:05.392 --> 01:00:09.312
You have low-level loops that are doing the control of your sponge-squishing,

01:00:09.432 --> 01:00:16.352
and maybe you have low-level stimulus-response behaviorist-type loops that are going on there.

01:00:16.652 --> 01:00:20.472
But then I additionally suggest that there is a higher cognitive level,

01:00:20.612 --> 01:00:29.032
which looks down on what's going on at the lower level, and categorizes it as the notion of softness.

01:00:29.432 --> 01:00:34.692
So the cognitive part looks down on the sensory motor loop and says,

01:00:34.812 --> 01:00:36.652
that's what I'm going to call softness.

01:00:36.992 --> 01:00:43.132
And the experience derives from both going on at the same time.

01:00:43.192 --> 01:00:47.572
You only have the experience of softness if you are both engaged in squishing

01:00:47.572 --> 01:00:51.532
the sponge and attending to the fact that you are so engaged.

01:00:52.392 --> 01:00:56.652
So it's not behaviorism because there's this important cognitive component that

01:00:56.652 --> 01:01:03.172
is categorizing and classifying and becoming aware and attending to the presence

01:01:03.172 --> 01:01:04.712
of this engagement with the environment.

01:01:05.212 --> 01:01:13.232
And as regards emotions, so you said, maybe there, am I not evacuating a possible

01:01:13.232 --> 01:01:18.852
additional non-sensory motor type… Exactly.

01:01:19.612 --> 01:01:23.572
Source or feel, right? Source that might be generating the feel somehow.

01:01:23.912 --> 01:01:27.712
But my intuition, but I haven't thought about emotions enough,

01:01:27.872 --> 01:01:32.832
my intuition would be, to take that stance, would be again to making the error of reification.

01:01:33.392 --> 01:01:38.392
And why not adopt, go the whole hog, you know, go the whole way and just use

01:01:38.392 --> 01:01:40.712
the same approach again with regard to emotion and say, well,

01:01:40.752 --> 01:01:43.552
no, nothing is, it's a philosophical error.

01:01:43.752 --> 01:01:48.212
It's what the philosophers call a category error to try and look for something

01:01:48.212 --> 01:01:49.272
that generates emotions.

01:01:50.172 --> 01:01:55.532
Emotions are not generated by neural mechanisms. No, emotions are just ways

01:01:55.532 --> 01:01:57.112
of interacting with the environment.

01:01:57.112 --> 01:02:00.212
It's not like the feel of red, which is one way of interacting,

01:02:00.392 --> 01:02:07.852
it's the way you interact when you are afraid constitutes the emotion of fear.

01:02:09.534 --> 01:02:16.794
So it's playing the scientific trick again of de-reifying what we mean by an

01:02:16.794 --> 01:02:19.374
emotion and giving up, essentially,

01:02:19.654 --> 01:02:25.094
the search for something that generates it in the brain and just saying,

01:02:25.174 --> 01:02:28.994
well, what we mean by fear is this set, this way of interacting with the world.

01:02:29.254 --> 01:02:32.654
And there need be nothing sensory motor about it.

01:02:32.654 --> 01:02:37.574
The motor aspect that I invoke to explain sensations like hearing,

01:02:37.774 --> 01:02:42.114
seeing, touch, taste, and smell, the reason I have the motor component there

01:02:42.114 --> 01:02:44.994
is because these are extra-receptive senses.

01:02:45.374 --> 01:02:50.494
They are senses that have the quality of being outside the body,

01:02:50.574 --> 01:02:54.034
and it's really motion of your body which determines what your body is.

01:02:54.234 --> 01:02:55.834
And so that's why motion is important.

01:02:56.254 --> 01:03:00.754
Perhaps for emotions, rather than these extraceptive senses,

01:03:01.194 --> 01:03:05.094
perhaps the body motion is less important, and you could have a theory which

01:03:05.094 --> 01:03:09.914
was not a sensory-motor theory, but which nevertheless abandoned the error of reification.

01:03:10.794 --> 01:03:17.974
Right. So with the reification, for instance, there are people who argue,

01:03:18.034 --> 01:03:24.654
look, look, the thalamocortical system is a fundamental component to, let's say, feel, right?

01:03:25.114 --> 01:03:28.174
Because if we have patients with lesions to their, let's say,

01:03:28.194 --> 01:03:31.754
interlambda nuclei, they lose consciousness. There's no more feel.

01:03:32.094 --> 01:03:35.594
They're like zombies, right? So in some sense, I could say, well,

01:03:35.734 --> 01:03:39.674
I could possibly fool Kevin because I could give him a zombie,

01:03:40.394 --> 01:03:44.054
and the zombie engages in all these sensory motor contingencies that completely

01:03:44.054 --> 01:03:46.834
satisfies his idea of squishiness and so on.

01:03:46.834 --> 01:03:49.914
And I know it's not feeling a thing, just a zombie.

01:03:50.234 --> 01:03:53.414
And this zombie could actually be a robot that I program, right?

01:03:53.454 --> 01:03:59.254
I could have my robot that performs all sorts of squeezing operations on different objects.

01:03:59.434 --> 01:04:01.694
I have a little classifier on top that says cognitive layer.

01:04:03.254 --> 01:04:06.774
I could argue, look, it performs all these actions, but it doesn't feel a thing.

01:04:07.034 --> 01:04:11.654
Hang on, I've lost you a little bit there. Are we talking about fear or softness?

01:04:11.734 --> 01:04:12.874
No, no, I jumped out of fear.

01:04:13.174 --> 01:04:17.414
Okay, so let's summarize then. You're saying, would it be possible to get a

01:04:17.414 --> 01:04:22.614
zombie who had all the sensory motor dependencies with regard to softness,

01:04:22.694 --> 01:04:24.294
but did not feel the softness?

01:04:24.354 --> 01:04:27.594
Right. So I was dealing with the issue of the verification, because with emotions,

01:04:27.654 --> 01:04:31.634
you want to jump out of it as well, which I understand.

01:04:31.974 --> 01:04:33.974
But I was trying to push back a little bit and say, hell, but wait,

01:04:34.094 --> 01:04:39.574
you could argue that specific lesions to the brain, like in the laminar nucleus

01:04:39.574 --> 01:04:44.474
of the thalamus, would lead to a loss of feel, of subjective experience.

01:04:44.474 --> 01:04:48.914
So that brings me onto this topic of the zombie and I could actually build a

01:04:48.914 --> 01:04:50.494
zombie in the form of a robot that

01:04:50.494 --> 01:04:55.094
was sort of how I was summarizing those steps so the question would be.

01:04:56.616 --> 01:05:01.456
What would be missing in my zombie that I would build in the robots I have upstairs,

01:05:01.916 --> 01:05:04.476
right, with respect to your theory?

01:05:04.656 --> 01:05:06.696
How would you not be fooled by my zombie?

01:05:07.116 --> 01:05:10.976
So, yeah, I mean, that's a really interesting question, okay?

01:05:12.036 --> 01:05:17.336
But let's do it. See, I'm not really familiar enough with the anatomy of emotions

01:05:17.336 --> 01:05:22.196
to be able to argue or talk sensibly with you about it.

01:05:22.256 --> 01:05:26.236
So let's do what you were suggesting, namely apply it to softness.

01:05:26.616 --> 01:05:29.476
Okay, so what would be a softness zombie?

01:05:29.696 --> 01:05:35.116
It would be somebody, which would be the bit that you would excise out of his

01:05:35.116 --> 01:05:38.916
brain so that he would become a zombie in the case of softness feel?

01:05:40.496 --> 01:05:43.596
What would it do? I mean, how would it affect the actual… Right,

01:05:43.676 --> 01:05:46.916
so let's build a robot, okay? It's easier.

01:05:47.116 --> 01:05:51.316
So I have a robot. The robot has a hand. I have some upstairs actually,

01:05:51.476 --> 01:05:53.136
like a iCub humanoid robot.

01:05:53.396 --> 01:05:56.576
It'll be squeezing stuff. You show the objects, it will squeeze them,

01:05:56.636 --> 01:06:01.196
and it will squeeze them, let's say, in a way that's fully consistent with how

01:06:01.196 --> 01:06:03.316
you have characterized this in humans, let's say.

01:06:05.576 --> 01:06:10.216
Now I could argue. And then in my control architecture, I need to sort of locate

01:06:10.216 --> 01:06:12.916
objects, grasp them, squeeze them, release them.

01:06:13.736 --> 01:06:18.196
I generate sensor feedback because I have sort of haptics on my fingertips of little sensors.

01:06:18.456 --> 01:06:21.796
And now I just classify these states, have some classifier that says,

01:06:21.976 --> 01:06:23.716
okay, hard, soft, and so on.

01:06:24.576 --> 01:06:28.356
It would satisfy roughly, I think, the theory of realizing the sensory motor

01:06:28.356 --> 01:06:30.076
contingencies and classifying them.

01:06:30.136 --> 01:06:33.076
Those are the acids cognitively clear. Okay, now you need the bodiliness, grabbiness.

01:06:33.316 --> 01:06:36.096
You need the grabbiness. I would need the grabbiness.

01:06:37.616 --> 01:06:41.636
It would not have any sense of grabbiness because grabbing stuff is all it does

01:06:41.636 --> 01:06:43.036
and squeezing stuff, right?

01:06:43.096 --> 01:06:46.756
No, you'd have to build a thing in such that if suddenly as it was squeezing

01:06:46.756 --> 01:06:53.076
the sponge, a needle pricked into its finger, that its cognitive resources would be… would be.

01:06:53.296 --> 01:06:56.956
That we can do. That's some sort of exception detector. Yeah.

01:06:56.956 --> 01:06:59.516
So that's an easy one. So what else is missing?

01:07:00.096 --> 01:07:05.356
Well, it has the bodyliness. It has everything now. Okay. So would you say this robot has feel? Yes.

01:07:05.816 --> 01:07:08.496
Okay. So that robot would have solved the quality of problem.

01:07:08.696 --> 01:07:11.556
Yeah. Okay. So then we're very close. That's cool.

01:07:12.236 --> 01:07:19.436
Okay. Very good. That gives me hope. So the other thing is then that's.

01:07:20.481 --> 01:07:23.861
If I could go to other aspects of feel, I could become psychotic,

01:07:24.001 --> 01:07:25.441
which is more difficult to do in a robot.

01:07:26.281 --> 01:07:32.201
So before we, you've got me thinking here, the people listening to us may be

01:07:32.201 --> 01:07:35.581
a bit shocked, you know, because we've just been talking about a robot and we

01:07:35.581 --> 01:07:37.321
built all this stuff in and now the robot feels.

01:07:37.581 --> 01:07:41.321
But I submit to them who are listening to us that, you know,

01:07:41.341 --> 01:07:45.081
this is what insects, you know, for example, would you say that insects feel?

01:07:45.441 --> 01:07:51.461
Would you say that flies feel? I mean, a mice feel or slugs feel.

01:07:51.521 --> 01:07:54.621
I have no problems with that. So it's really a matter of definition.

01:07:54.921 --> 01:08:01.321
And I'm saying that if you build, where you put the boundary between feeling

01:08:01.321 --> 01:08:03.841
and not feeling is just a matter of choice.

01:08:03.981 --> 01:08:11.781
And my tack on this is that if it has the qualities of bodiliness,

01:08:12.001 --> 01:08:17.541
insubordinateness, etc., grabbiness, then it's very much like what we do.

01:08:17.541 --> 01:08:23.381
And so I would consider it to be sort of racist with regard to these other agents

01:08:23.381 --> 01:08:26.601
or animals to say that they do not feel. Right.

01:08:26.881 --> 01:08:32.141
However, if I understand it correctly, real experiences, but they also don't have a function.

01:08:32.261 --> 01:08:36.881
It's just one subset of the possible ways of interacting with the world that humans have.

01:08:37.081 --> 01:08:40.001
Okay, so you're saying we shouldn't pose these questions at this level,

01:08:40.081 --> 01:08:43.201
like what's the function of X? Yeah. Well, not in this case, anyway.

01:08:44.101 --> 01:08:46.801
I don't think life has a function, I don't think feel has a function,

01:08:46.881 --> 01:08:50.541
I don't think consciousness as a function, because they're just words that describe

01:08:50.541 --> 01:08:54.221
the way we interact with the world. With concepts.

01:08:54.701 --> 01:09:00.801
We could ask, let's be more specific and say, why do we interact with the world

01:09:00.801 --> 01:09:02.081
in this way rather than that way?

01:09:03.701 --> 01:09:13.601
For example, why am I conscious of the red light when I stop my car,

01:09:13.761 --> 01:09:16.561
rather than being not conscious of it.

01:09:18.261 --> 01:09:21.961
No, I don't know whether that's a meaningful question. Sometimes I am conscious of it.

01:09:22.061 --> 01:09:27.861
Sometimes I'm not conscious of it if I'm talking to my fellow in the car.

01:09:28.841 --> 01:09:32.161
Would you be willing to talk about the function of vision, let's say,

01:09:32.321 --> 01:09:35.201
or the function of having hands? Yeah.

01:09:36.262 --> 01:09:39.062
Would you be willing to consider that question? Also that you would say,

01:09:39.142 --> 01:09:40.342
look, this really doesn't matter.

01:09:40.522 --> 01:09:44.742
That these functional questions or these more teleological questions are… Yeah,

01:09:44.982 --> 01:09:46.102
it's dangerous, isn't it?

01:09:46.962 --> 01:09:49.542
I think they're essential. I feel that… I think they're essential.

01:09:49.722 --> 01:09:52.342
It's certainly coupled with feel, but I didn't write your book, right?

01:09:52.502 --> 01:09:57.062
Okay, so I think I understand. So you're saying one could say of humans that

01:09:57.062 --> 01:10:00.742
the function of having hands is that it will enable them to survive better, essentially.

01:10:01.002 --> 01:10:03.602
Yeah, to also engage in certain interactions with certain objects,

01:10:03.662 --> 01:10:07.262
certain sizes, food handling, whatever. Whatever, defense, God knows what.

01:10:07.262 --> 01:10:09.662
Okay, so why not ask the same question for a feel?

01:10:09.822 --> 01:10:11.722
And I would say, I don't know what I say.

01:10:11.922 --> 01:10:15.742
I say, well, the real question is, when you say.

01:10:22.122 --> 01:10:27.502
The real question is, well, let's take red then, the feel of red.

01:10:27.662 --> 01:10:29.982
Why does red have a feel rather than not having a feel?

01:10:30.682 --> 01:10:33.222
What is the function of it having a feel rather than no feel?

01:10:33.422 --> 01:10:34.142
Yeah, that's what I want to know.

01:10:34.142 --> 01:10:37.242
If you really ask what you mean by red having a feel, what I said is,

01:10:37.322 --> 01:10:41.562
what you really mean by red having a feel rather than not having a feel is that

01:10:41.562 --> 01:10:47.522
it has this sensory presence, that's to say, that it can attract your attention if it changes suddenly.

01:10:47.802 --> 01:10:52.622
It changes very much when you move your body around.

01:10:57.042 --> 01:11:00.002
Why are things that way rather than not being that way?

01:11:04.742 --> 01:11:07.562
You have me a bit stumped there. But it's interesting, right?

01:11:07.622 --> 01:11:11.762
Because apparently if we go from hands to rat, there seems to be some strange transition.

01:11:12.682 --> 01:11:18.862
Okay? And so the question is, are we entering a regime of interrogation where

01:11:18.862 --> 01:11:20.402
we say, look, now we're here, we're fooling ourselves.

01:11:20.662 --> 01:11:24.982
Here it doesn't matter. But below some boundary it does, and is it then gradual

01:11:24.982 --> 01:11:26.662
or is it some discrete transition?

01:11:27.162 --> 01:11:30.922
So I admit I'm slightly stumped there, but while I think about it,

01:11:30.962 --> 01:11:33.462
let me ask you a question. What is the function of life?

01:11:34.962 --> 01:11:40.742
So do you think there, I mean, you went from hands to red, and I was stumped.

01:11:40.802 --> 01:11:44.522
Now let's go from hands to life. Aren't you going to be stumped there?

01:11:45.662 --> 01:11:52.342
No, because to me life indeed has no function as such except reproduction. But so why does… Ah.

01:11:54.982 --> 01:11:57.622
But why… Because it maintains itself, right, in that sense.

01:11:59.642 --> 01:12:02.942
So I'm willing to… That's what we mean by life. That's not its function.

01:12:02.942 --> 01:12:08.182
It's a part of what we mean by being alive is that it replicates, remains.

01:12:08.762 --> 01:12:11.502
Well, you have agents that can be alive and don't replicate.

01:12:12.422 --> 01:12:17.142
Okay, well, that it maintains its function. Like memes. Memes also maintain

01:12:17.142 --> 01:12:20.242
themselves. I would search in that direction.

01:12:20.382 --> 01:12:22.462
I would not be stumped by it. I might make a massive mistake,

01:12:22.602 --> 01:12:25.762
but this is roughly where I would go with my answer.

01:12:27.902 --> 01:12:32.662
With regard to life, you mean? Yeah. So how could I do that with regard to red?

01:12:34.589 --> 01:12:37.649
Exactly. We'll have to think about this.

01:12:38.589 --> 01:12:43.509
There's an interesting challenge here. So this is not necessarily also,

01:12:43.569 --> 01:12:45.089
let's say, a flaw in the theory.

01:12:45.249 --> 01:12:49.329
I think this is interesting because what is nice is that what is actually powerful,

01:12:49.449 --> 01:12:51.829
what you're proposing, now we can pose this question.

01:12:52.769 --> 01:12:55.589
And we have a framework in which we can start to address it.

01:12:55.849 --> 01:12:58.709
And that's why I first tried to do it through the sensor-motor contingencies.

01:12:58.829 --> 01:13:00.549
But that might not be enough. I just don't know.

01:13:00.929 --> 01:13:05.089
But that's something we have to investigate. So now to finish up, I have two questions.

01:13:05.689 --> 01:13:13.409
So now you just published this book and also sort of expressing a long tradition of work,

01:13:13.569 --> 01:13:20.289
including co-inventing or inventing change blindness as a phenomenon,

01:13:20.509 --> 01:13:22.209
which has given rise to a large number of experiments.

01:13:22.849 --> 01:13:25.729
So building on this experience also in different disciplines,

01:13:25.849 --> 01:13:28.989
different domains, now taking this really hard problem of consciousness and

01:13:28.989 --> 01:13:35.269
qualia, what's the one law of Kevin O'Regan that we should keep in mind when

01:13:35.269 --> 01:13:37.189
we study mind-brain and behavior?

01:13:37.929 --> 01:13:43.569
Yeah, I would say it's this law of abandon reification. That would be my law.

01:13:43.949 --> 01:13:47.269
Abandon And then abandon magical substances.

01:13:48.369 --> 01:13:54.469
Okay, no more myth. And then the second thing is, since we're doing science,

01:13:54.529 --> 01:13:55.289
we want to do predictions.

01:13:57.049 --> 01:14:04.529
And I would like to come visit you five years from now, wherever you are, just to annoy you.

01:14:04.589 --> 01:14:06.209
I want to say, look, five years back you made this prediction.

01:14:06.289 --> 01:14:08.269
Today I want to know whether it really came out.

01:14:08.729 --> 01:14:11.069
So what's this one prediction you really would like to make today?

01:14:13.398 --> 01:14:21.798
I haven't thought about that. I would really like to do more work on color,

01:14:21.898 --> 01:14:25.878
because I think I've really got a handle on color here, and it's very, very exciting.

01:14:26.878 --> 01:14:31.458
And also the sensory substitution work. I really think it should be possible

01:14:31.458 --> 01:14:36.318
to make more realistic sensory substitution devices. devices,

01:14:36.398 --> 01:14:40.778
not so much for vision, for replacing vision, but perhaps for auditory perception.

01:14:41.338 --> 01:14:48.938
People are using cochlear implants a lot as prostheses for deaf people,

01:14:49.158 --> 01:14:53.498
but I would have thought that it would be really possible to make an efficient,

01:14:53.758 --> 01:14:57.298
say, tactile prosthesis for deaf people.

01:14:57.698 --> 01:15:00.338
Okay, that's your prediction. Five years from now, we're going to have one.

01:15:00.618 --> 01:15:04.358
Yeah, 10 years. No, no, I asked for five. Five years. Okay.

01:15:05.098 --> 01:15:07.478
Okay, Kevin O'Regan, thank you very much for this interview.

01:15:07.120 --> 01:15:13.360
Music.

01:15:07.718 --> 01:15:08.898
Thank you, Paul. Very interesting.

01:15:34.498 --> 01:15:40.318
Go to csnnetwork.eu. And thank you for listening.

01:15:38.160 --> 01:15:46.160
Music.