Consciousness and Cosmic Purpose | Philip Goff on the Fine-Tuning of the Universe and Panpsychism

Meh, it's probably just a "loosh" farm.

the buddhist "5 aggregates" shows that there is no "consciousness/self" there is only our sense stimulus and mental reaction or response to them. you seem to agree with the first part. but then you "smuggle in" an "other worldly entity" . not sure why you do that.

Of course there is more dis-value (as he put it) than there is value. We must fend off discomfort, pain, and suffering, where as we have to chase after comfort, pleasure, and happiness. That means suffering is the default. If you do not seek food and shelter you are going to be very uncomfortable, so doing nothing defaults to the negative side of the coin, and that means the negative outweighs the positive. Likewise nature does everything in its power to make sure you arrive in this world, but once you are here it does everything it can to kill you off. That is natural selection. The vast majority of the energy it directed towards killing you off. Do nothing to survive and nature will take you out, it will not keep you alive all by itself. It requires energy to acquire the positive, where as it takes no energy to encounter the negative, it comes our way without any effort at all. So theory disqualified if that is how he breaks it down. You could also break this down as a question of balance, is there enough happiness in this world to make enduring the suffering worth while. I say no, I think the negative far outweighs the positive for the very same reason I outlined above. Now one might try to make the argument for the idea we take the positive for granted, but that just isn't true. We only expect the positive because we put so much energy into attempting the acquisition of it it, and even then after we put all that energy into seeking the positive I would suggest the negative still outweighs it. It seems we are fighting a losing battle chasing happiness and avoiding the pain and suffering. The universe seems to be designed for entropy, and that means it is designed for being more bad than good. Again it takes energy to fend off the entropy which makes it the default.

I like Phillip and agree with his views. However his views have chaged somehwat in the last few years. What he now appears to advocating is no different from Bernardo Kastrups analytic idealism and renaming it panpsychism. I think he should, at the very least, be honest about this.

1. Consciousness doesn’t seem like it’s on a spectrum from simple to complex. How conscious someone is can be on a spectrum, like i’m only half conscious this morning until i get coffee.

2. My intuition is that our minds are like a holographic mandlebrot set and hence there is no point that is really “fundamental.”

3. Dark matter/energy does not exist. I see no republicans to think a multiverse exist either.

How about the various constants and forces interacting with each other, evolving themselves into a combination that "works." One could be different, the others would adjust to that ... and an infinite combination of forces and laws would "work." Also, we have no clear inkling of possible various forms of "life" which could clearly exist under radically different conditions. As for teleology, I do assign to an underlying purpose and expression, with the universe in toto being similar to all its parts in that self-expression is the goal.

It seems that in the discussion of value versus disvalue the subject got kind of personalized to the human race, as if the effects on it are so important in the universe. Difficulties of the human race would be a factor of about .0000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the universal value. Bad argument it seems that there is more disvalue than value. For who? For what? The whole discussion focused on "the world's disvalue" and the suffering of people on it when posing disvalue as a problem for the value based theory. What about the cosmos, not the little earth? In forming this objection to the value theory, we forgot the cosmos existed and just addressed "the world," or the earth. The discussion just kept conflating what''s happening on earth with the value of THE COSMOS. I mean what percent of the value/disvalue ratio has anything to do with life on earth?

Consciousness is a radical influence on behavior and thus on survival. IT IS a mechanism of survival ... and the best one. You have to feel your state to survive. And that's experience. That's proto-consciousness. For instance if I am hungry but don't know it, I won't survive; if I have a fever and don't know it, I won't survive; if I am freezing to death but can't feel it, I won't survive; if we need to reproduce to survive but can't feel a sex drive, it ain't happening. The easiest way to solve all this is experience, which later evolves into more elaborate forms, i.e. consciousness.

Self-expression is the value and the purpose, imo. For everything: the universe and everything in it. And that is the foundation of the sacred, the spiritual. We are a subset of the universe and have the same purpose: self-expression/self-realization. So in order to be aligned with nature, the goal, the purpose and the meaning is self-expression/self-realization.

The answer to why we suffer: freedom is better than safety.

while I'm leaning to spiritual, I think that fine tuning backs up multiverse interpretation of quantum physics very neatly.

I would describe myself as a semi-panpsychist. I don't think consciousness needs to go all the way down to inanimate objects. Why couldn't it just stop at the boundary of life / non-life ??? Also why is it ALWAYS assumed that God is GOOD, leading us to the so-called "Problem of Evil." No one ever seems to look at the possibility that God could actually be EVIL. In the Old Testament / Jewish scriptures God seems to have some rather nasty traits eg. encouraging genocide between tribes and being a "jealous" God. He seems to do a lot of "smiting" and even drowning humanity at the time of Noah. Many early Christians noticed these traits and called him the "Demiurge" The Cathars were massacred because of these views.

Free will the name of the universal Game of Life Consciousness the universal aim of Life power 3 Consciousness sets all captives free from all the chains that bind us with knowledge of what is love what is light what is eternal Third Eye Site

MAtriX3x3 OM'E...
"The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental." "As above, so below; as below, so above.”
"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates."

Everything is ALLMIND369 OVEONE IAM=O=QuantuM⚖️ ALLMIND IN 3in1MINDS Body Spirit OVE
light*3÷7 color*3÷7 sound*3÷7.. infinite all mind in Trinity every thought has an opposite charge of itself.
♂️+01=0=-01♀️
Riding the waves through our moments in equilibrium is A NEW beginning in masteRING3X369 of our OWN each individual unique complete Immaculate conceived MIND
1IN3💚3IN1 of
IAM 1LOVES
Light3
3 above our heArt
3 below
7 sums

7SUMS CREATION ALLMIND frequency vibration in THOUGHTS charge

MC² in

v soundly argued imo

Your so wrong......

I love your work Adrian! IMO, it's past time for academic philosophers to begin wrestling with what we've learned about non-physical conscious experience, apparent in phenomena like NDEs, savant syndrome, childhood past-life cases, psi abilities, OBE, etc. These have been studied for decades by professional scientists.

test

Saying we live in world of more disvalue than value because of Jurassic Park Darwinism ? is to forget the billions of years sitting on a lily pad. And to blame scientists for leaving out consciousness, is to forget the pope burned those who did at the stake.

Nature makes highly improbable things happen by creating unimaginably large numbers of random things, as potential opportunities. The realities that don't work at all are effectively discarded by anthropic principle. There is simply no one alive to see how bad that particular reality really is. The universe does not have squat for intended "purpose". The rest is religious bull, and fairy-tales for the naive.

It seems most people think you have to have Consciousness prior to having intelligence or awareness. But I think at this point it's the other way around. When I think about a subatomic particle. I see a nonzero amount of awareness and intelligence programmed into it. Somehow an Electron has to be aware of the Neutron, to interact with it. Please don't think I mean awareness like us humans have. But something similar to awareness. So I believe at this point that subatomic particles have protoconsciousness. 

The idea that consciousness is described as something that can have an experience of what it is like to be like itself. I believe it doesn't go deep enough. Following Michael Levin's work and his description of cognitive light cones. His description of consciousness makes sense to me. Also he has changed how I view life and what is a conscious agent in general.

There is no "comman Ground" for universal "TRUTH'"!! It is misleading to compare Hindu "vedaantha, Arthman" ideology to " non-attachment " base in Buddha Dhamma !!! In Buddha Dhamma fundamental teaching is non -self. life is a chain of impermanent processes base on "conscious energy" interacting with universal phenomena. In the human six sensory aggregates accumulate "energy" for future life existence. Gathering energy to the "heart organ" through the blood stream as elector chemical magnetic waves. The "brain" receives this in milliseconds to produce a "thought". Thought quality depends on "wisdom" of personality, to continue or otherwise. Attachment to "thought seed" results in "kammic " action or stored as memory or as experience. In physical world, planting "seeds" help for reproduction. This process of "cause & effect" (kamma) is a universal phenomena 5000 years old. "Vedic Gurus" are making people to believe "ARTHMAN" is engaged in cycle of Life.

Still don’t think it’s fine tuned for us. It’s tuned how it’s tuned and we’re just something that’s is allowed by that tuning. A different tuning would have a whole new infinite set of things that would be possible in it.

Just no. I’m sorry but this guy is full of shit. Present some evidence other than “well it seems this way so that’s enough”. And that sniper analogy was horrible. I’m out universe there are ONLY winning numbers on the wheel it’s not miraculous

We only encounter the experiences that we programme into manifestation. Like a computer programme, garbage in, garbage out. Create stories without suffering. So, for example, a global population is perfectly able to take action to minimise the suffering in the world. This is within our gift.

Philip's voice is one of the happiest I'm aware of.

We should focus a bit more on the point that was only mentioned very briefly i.e. we’ve not evolved enough to be able to comprehend the ‘value’, or the purpose, of the universe. The universe is fine tuned for evolution, our species may, or may not, survive the process. Yet, on other planet/s it will. Then, they’ll know why the universe is not a waste of space. 42 is the meaning of life but what 42 means 😜

The idea that there's multiple versions of myself in an endless Universe just feels ridiculous to me.

I am quite convinced, from the current scientific evidence, that there is some sort of intelligence at work behind the universe. This is very close to the idea of God. In the Judeo / Christian tradition this creative force is deemed to be GOOD. Nobody seems to consider the possibility that God, (the creative intelligence) may in fact be EVIL or possibly A-MORAL. Why aren't these possibilities ever taken seriously considering the so-called "problem of evil?" Perhaps these possibilities are too distasteful to be seriously considered. I have heard it said by religious people "there has to be evil in the world so that we can see the good." You can logically flip the argument around so that "there must be some good in the world so that we can see the evil"

What is the precise meaning of value in the context of these videos? They are all very good, by the way.

The fine tuning proves design
God is the designer
It really is just that simple.

Read "First Letter to the Apostate" by William Taciturnus

We are the Gods of AI,,, we created the computers, programs, infrastructure,and we watch it do computations from a distance.
It may at some point in the future start this whole process over again without our help. How is this so different from our God / creator of everything , who stays outside of time and space, material. receives our consciousness so he/she can look at his/ her creation from infinite perspectives of good, bad, beautiful, ugly, the opposites of whatever you can think of with our limited brains.
Our physical body/brains are nothing more than a bag of (Rocks) minerals, water, which is 99.9999% of empty space.
Try to even understand the complexity of the machinery that’s involved inside a single human cell that has to come together as a complete working unit in a hostile environment.
I am ok with the multi verse, ufo’s , uap’s why would anyone put a limit on a creator that created everything we live in,, it would never be a boring existence if we could choose to take our consciousness to different realities with different physics that we could never comprehend from this perspective.
It’s all created from Consciousness!
Thank You!

This was fantastic.

Bonjour, il n'y a aucun "fine tuning" si cela était autrement, nous ne serions pas là à en parler. Nous sommes adaptés à ces valeurs et pas l'inverse, c'est évident.

The way I see it true philosophers are those who land on the question of what the true essence of consciousness is and choose to find out by ending their current incarnation and those who reach that question fear non existence and live the rest of their lives as half assed philosophers that speculate what it MAY mean

The way I see science and the meaninglessness of it all is like a video game imagine a Pokémon cartridge had all the little humans gain consciousness and eventually they began to data mind, they would be sure that there is no meaning for existence and that code just arranged itself and made them exist, but if the creator of the game never actually encoded why they made the game and what exist outside of the cartridge then no amount of data mining no matter how extensive would give that answer

I think he's right after reading German philosophers of idealism like Schelling and Fichte at the age of 17 and rethinking later how much fine- tuning was needed to create life. There seems an obvious will to create life and consciousness in the cosmos, which can't be explained by accident.

I would confirm rational government s in the world. Why arent they?

Calling the universe's evolution purposive seems like a stretch even while I strongly lean towards panpsychism. While individual particles or fields may have something like proto-desires--e.g. an electron feeling a faint 'wanting' to repel from another electron--it's not as if the electron is thinking about its future goals and plans. If the universe were to be purposive, it would also have to be a sort of blind wanting, not on the level of a complex brain. Since the universe lacks a brain, it wouldn't make sense to think it's acting on anything resembling an actual plan for the future.

Many thanks! An extremely important topic and interesting discussion for an open global brainstorm,
Fundamental science (mathematics, physics, cosmology) has rested on the understanding of space and matter (ontological structure), the nature of the "laws of nature", the nature of "fundamental constants", the nature of "fine tuning", the nature of the phenomena of time, number, information, consciousness.
Fundamental science ( is experiencing an acute conceptual - paradigmatic crisis in the metaphysical/ontological basis, manifested as a “crisis of understanding” (J. Horgan “The End of Science”, Kopeikin K.V. “Souls” of atoms and “atoms” of the soul: Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Carl Gustav Jung and "three great problems of physics", "crisis of interpretation and representation" (Romanovskaya T.B. "Modern physics and contemporary art - parallels of style"), "loss of certainty" (Kline M "Mathematics: Loss of Certainty", D. Zaitsev “Truth, Consequence and Modern Logic”), “trouble with physics” (Lee Smolin “The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next”).

"Multiverse" is a pseudoscientific hypothesis.
More than a quarter of a century ago, the mathematician and philosopher Vasily Nalimov set the super-task of building a "super-unified field theory that describes both physical and semantic manifestations of the World" - the creation of a model of the "Self-Aware Universe" (1996). In the same direction, the ideas of the Nobel laureate in physics Brian Josephson, set out in the essay "On the Fundamentality of Meaning" (2018).
Brian Josephson: “Physicists' immersion in search of their 'theories of everything' has led them to an oversimplified picture of the natural world. To a picture that can work very well in situations used to test physical theories. But this picture is completely incapable of clarifying and helping to deal with such problems as observation, the meaning of the observed and the processes of thought.”
John A. Wheeler: "We are no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself."
To understand the EXISTENCE itself means to "grasp" (understand) the nature of the primordial TENSION of the Cosmos, to understand the nature of space and time. And for this it is necessary to "grasp" the primordial generating structure of matter - "La Structure Mère" (Ontological SuperStructure / Causal Primary Structure) . That is, to build a model of the metaphysical triad "being-nothing/otherbeing-becoming". We need breakthrough dialectical and ontological ideas, a methodology for dialectical-ontological construction of the basis of knowledge. It is necessary to build a new EXTENDED BASIS of knowledge and cognition in general - a new EXTENDED IDEALITY. Here we need DIALECTICAL ONTOLOGIC - the logic of the coincidence of ontological opposites.
G. Hegel: “The truth of space and time is matter.”
Fields Prize winner mathematician V. Voevodsky: “Material reality is the absolute judge of truth.”
The paradigm of the Universe as an eternal holistic generating process (the "PARADIGM OF UNDERSTANDING") gives a new look at matter and space. MATTER is what all meanings, forms and structures are born from . SPACE is an ideal entity, an ideal limit for states of matter. The ontological structure of space (absolute, ontological, existential) is rigidly connected with the absolute forms of existence of matter (absolute states). And there are three and only three of these states: absolute rest (linear state, absolute Continuum, ideal image, shape - "cube", "Cartesian box") + absolute motion (vortex, cyclic, absolute Discretuum, ideal image, shape - "sphere") and their synthesis - absolute becoming (wave, absolute wave, absolute DisContinuum, ideal image, shape - "cylinder"). What is especially important: each absolute form of existence of matter has its own ONTOLOGICAL PATH (the bivector of the absolute state). Accordingly, SPACE (absolute, ontological, existential) has three ontological dimensions / 9 gnoseological dimensions: three “linear” + three “vortex” + three “wave”. But we must "dig" deeper into ontology in order to “comprehend” the meta—phenomenon - the ONTOLOGICAL (structural, cosmic) MEMORY, “soul of matter”, its measure . Ontological (structural, cosmic) memory is that "NOTHING " that holds, preserves, develops and directs matter (entelechy, nous, Aristotle's "mind-prime mover").
To understand SPACE and TIME, we must move from the physicalist concept, the simple ideality of “SPACE-TIME”, to the ontological concept of “SPACE-MATTER/MEMORY-TIME" . That is, to generating process with memory.
TIME (ontological) is a polyvalent phenomenon of ontological (structural, cosmic) memory, which substantiates the quantitative certainty of the existence of the Universe as an eternal holistic process of generating meanings, forms and structures. Time (ontological) is the dialectic of the generation of number and meaning. Ontological time = cyclic ("horizontal" of being of the Universe) + wave (emergent, time of becoming of the generating structure) + linear ("vertical" of being, hierarchical time). The birth of the "arrow of time" is the birth of light. Gnoseological time ("human-dimensional") - past, present, future. Information is a polyvalent phenomenon of ontological (structural, cosmic) memory which substantiates the certainty, orderliness, essential / substantive unity of the Universe as an eternal holistic process of generating more and more new meanings, forms and structures.
InFORMAtion is a polyvalent phenomenon of ontological (structural, cosmic) memory which substantiates the certainty, orderliness, essential / substantive unity of the Universe as an eternal holistic process of generating more and more new meanings, forms and structures.
Consciousness is an absolute (unconditional) attractor of meanings.
Meaning is the unconditional foundation of the existence of the Universe.
Consciousness is a qualitative vector/bivector value .
Consciousness is a univalent phenomenon of ontological (structural, cosmic) memory, which manifests itself at a certain level of being of the Universe as an eternal holistic process of generating meanings, forms and structures.
Consciousness is a universal semantic “radar”, an instrument of ontological (structural, cosmic) memory.
observed and the processes of thought.”
Evolution is an eternal process of accumulation of memory.

An interesting philosophical position but one that is the least probable of the other two alternatives.

'spiritual-experience,' to a Philosophy student, much later a Taoist: 'spatial-temporal,' but in a MUCH freer 'co-ordination' to each other !!! Wanna surf on a gigantic STONE, as if it were in your own balance with it ? & you & it are of ONE 'mind' as if a 'falling leaf' ? : yeah: 😂 now, THAT was 'golden,' b/c i was most certainly, AWAKE ! 😂

(ya know: several of these, & your reference point becomes a practicality of the Earth's Ecliptic 'constant,' as 'Magnetic'... & the Grt. Pyr. that POINTS TO IT ! & 'photons are we' ! yow ! :) 😊

(o' : an actual 'Master,' actually 'appeared'... can't EVER 'prove' anything...
ya know: 'non-zero'... 😂 :(

Why is it that when science discovered matter, it observed, manipulated, and ultimately named it, science somehow came to own matter, as if it has a patent on the atom ? The brain creates sounds and symbols to convince itself to believe something, especially in the realm of science. Science discovered this matter, observed it, and manipulated it, ultimately designating the name "atom," which suggests that it belongs to science.

However, I can easily change the word "atom" to "Frank" or "doorknob," and it would still behave in the same way. Now, here is my point: I believe that an atom is a primitive form of consciousness and awareness, now what?

I'm in agreement with almost everything espoused in this discussion, save that "we (can't) just decide for ourselves what's meaningful."

If I am consciousness experiencing itself through a human vessel -- this precise one, to be exact -- then it is my prerogative as consciousness to decide what subjectively holds meaning to me in this moment, through this temple of senses.

I believe it is up to each node of localized consciousness to find what holds the most meaning to them and to pursue it to the fullest, to the very best of their ability, inviting only whoever else might find that jar of canned blades of grass so infinitely captivating to join in, and leaving the rest to their own fascinations.

The trouble and suffering seems to arise most when we presume to attempt to impose our individual ideas of meaning and importance onto other conscious agents, and I believe we should therfore abstain from doing so on a mass scale. This type of behavior would, no doubt, shake the very foundation of life as most of us have been brought up in, but I can personally see no alternative that does not invite continued self destruction the likes of which we can only continue to watch unfold before our very eyes.

Live your life, and let the rest determine theirs. 💕

How do you know that the suffering isn't necessary for a greater good? A child thinks a doctor is mean because he pokes him with a needle.

This is incorrect, everything emerged from and in consciousness as it is fundamental. No consciousness, no anything else. There is no separation

Childdish. Cultish.
Panpsychism is untebable

I think the definition of value in this conversation is limiting to a larger understanding. Positive value could not exist without negative value existing.

I have just finished working my way through all of the podcast episodes. This podcast has been a real adventure for me, I've learnt a lot listening to all of the episodes and have so much to think about in relation to the theories presented. I really appreciate that this is very accessible to me as someone who has never studied any of these concepts. Thanks for making this so open to anyone, and understandable to an interested lay person. This episode is particularly uplifting and combined with some of the others has made me feel more compelled to consider how I'm affecting the universe around me and given me a more positive outlook for the possible the future - which is much needed in a rather gloomy and negatively charged period! I hope that The Waking Cosmos is still functioning as a project, I will be happy to support via Patreon if it is.

I'm very curious to hear what you all think about fine-tuning. It certainly seems to require explanation, but I'm very open-minded about what that explanation might be.