Mind Chat

Andy Clark is a leading and incredibly influential philosopher and cognitive scientist. Among other things, Andy has done pioneering work on predictive processing and the extended mind thesis. Here Keith and Philip discuss with Andy his most recent book 'The Experience Machine.'

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/04/the-experience-machine-how-our-minds-predict-and-shape-reality-review

Philip recently went public with his conversion to a heretical form of Christianity (see article and video below). In this episode Keith and Philip discuss this and open up to Q&A.
   • Why This Famous Atheist Became a Prog...  
https://aeon.co/.../i-now-think-a-her....
IMPORTANT NOTE: I accidentally said that "Jesus" didn't approve of gay sex, but I meant to say "Paul." Philip

Annaka Harris is author of bestselling book "Conscious" and writer and producer of the forthcoming audio documentary series "Lights On." In this episode we mainly focused on panpsychism, although we also touched on free will and the self. Annaka is sympathetic to panpsychism, so Philip and Annaka compared their reasons for taking the view seriously, whilst Keith and Annaka tried to work out why they disagreed.

Can taking psychedelics teach us more about the mind than science and philosophy? Is it rational to trust what mystical experiences seem to be telling us about ultimate reality? These are questions Keith and Philip would like the answers to, and apparently Sarah Lane-Ritchie and Aidan Lyon have them. Join us to find out what they are!

Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He is also the author of the wonderful recent book 'Free Agents: How Evolution Gave us Free will', a robust defence of the reality of free will. Between the three of us, we aim to definitely establish whether or not humans are free.

For more on Kevin Mitchell:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/har...

https://www.kjmitchell.com/

Timings

0:00 – Amusing Banter

4:41 – Introducing Kevin Mitchell

6:07 – Kevin’s view

16:12 – The Philosophy of Free Will

29:03 – Keith Probes Kevin

51:25 – Philip and Keith disagree on how to interpret Kevin’s position

1:01:00 – Does quantum mechanics help?

1:24:12 – Keith can’t help himself

1:30:24 – Philip mutes Keith

1:30:57 – Audience Q&A

1:43:33 – Final banter and Mind Chat catchphrase