Philip Goff — British philosopher specializing in philosophy of mind and consciousness, a leading defender of panpsychism. Author of Galileo's Error and co-host of the Mind Chat podcast.
The gist
Lex Fridman and Philip Goff explore panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of physical reality rather than something produced by the brain. Goff argues that materialism cannot capture the qualitative, privately-observable nature of experience, and contrasts his view with Daniel Dennett's denial of consciousness and with dualism. The conversation ranges over the hard problem, integrated information theory, the moral status of animals and robots, philosophical zombies, free will, mystical experience, and whether we live in a simulation. They close on meaning, value, and living in hope of a purpose to existence.
Big reveals
- Goff opens by directly disagreeing with Elon Musk, asserting consciousness pervades matter and is the ultimate nature of matter.
- Goff lays out panpsychism: fundamental particles like electrons have incredibly simple forms of experience that build into human consciousness.
- Goff describes a 'radical conversion' in grad school rejecting Hume, now believing some life goals are objectively pointless (counting blades of grass).
- He flips the standard problem: rather than getting consciousness from matter, panpsychism gets physics out of consciousness.
- Goff argues a silicon philosophical zombie would have no moral rights and turning it off would not be murder.
- He recounts persuading Daniel Dennett he was wrong on a point about dualism and energy conservation aboard a yacht in the Arctic.
- Goff says no when asked if we live in a simulation, because the argument wrongly assumes consciousness is substrate-independent.
- He warns mind-uploading could be 'committing suicide' since copying software wouldn't preserve the conscious stuff of the brain.
Things worth remembering
- Consciousness is unique in science because the thing being explained is not publicly observable, unlike particles or wave functions.
- Materialism's core problem: physics is purely quantitative and cannot capture qualities like the smell of coffee or red of a sunset.
- Every pixel on a brain scan corresponds to about 5.5 million neurons, and the brain has 86 billion neurons.
- Doing physics is like playing chess without caring what the pieces are made of, it tells us what matter does, not what it is.
- Integrated information theory locates consciousness where there is the most integrated information in a system.
- Thomas Nagel's point: no amount of bat neurophysiology tells you what it is like to echolocate.
- Illusionism, held by Goff's Mind Chat co-host Keith Frankish, claims consciousness doesn't really exist at all.
- On Libet's experiments, Goff notes they only test random button-presses, not genuine free choices that weigh up reasons.
- Goff argues you can live in hope of a purpose to existence without certainty, like having faith a sick friend will recover.
Recommended in this episode
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Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness
Philip Goff
“he is the author of galileo's error foundations for a new science of consciousness and is the host of an excellent podcast” — Lex Fridman 00:00:31Find it on Amazon
Consciousness and Fundamental Reality
Philip Goff
“you first wrote consciousness and fundamental reality so that's the academic book also very good i flew through it last night” — Lex Fridman 00:59:46Find it on Amazon
Mind Chat
Philip Goff and Keith Frankish
“the host of an excellent podcast called mind chat” — guest 00:00:31Find it on Amazon
Rick and Morty
Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland (inferred)
“there's a rick and morty episode i've been getting into that recently that's fantastic uh there's a episode where there's these mind parasites” — Lex Fridman 02:00:15Find it on Amazon