Patricia Churchland - Neurophilosophy

Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American philosopher working at the University of California, San Diego. She is associated with a school of thought in the philosophy of mind called eliminativism (or eliminative materialism), which argues that folk-psychological concepts such as belief, free will, and consciousness will likely need to be revised as science understands more about the nature of brain function.

In this clip, journalist Bill Moyers interviews philosopher Patricia Smith Churchland on how empirical research in the neurosciences could have radical implications for longstanding philosophical questions concerning the nature of knowledge, the self, and conscious experience.

She also discuses the limits of our imaginative abilities, and how they have historically failed us when we attempt to speculate concerning what types of phenomena will, in principle, never be adequately explained in solely materialistic terms. Consequently, she thinks we shouldn't take a failure of imagination as an insight into ontological necessity.

Next, she discusses her conversations with the Dalai Lama, his amazing openness to conceptual revision in the face of advancing empirical research, and how it is unlikely that new neurobiological facts will have a radical impact on our moral reasoning.

Finally, she addresses some of the religious implications of contemporary neurobiological research, and how (just like in the case of vitalism) the religious notion of an immaterial soul has become impotent and unnecessary as an explanation.

This is a mirror of a video that was originally uploaded by LennyBound. Because his channel has two strikes, he has suggested that his videos be mirrored because he is concerned that his videos might be lost if his channel suffers another hit:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LennyBound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2DPKLRBuio

Neuroscience Neurophilosophy playlist
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F625403703FA718A
Philosophy Mind playlist
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6ECC9241093D7099

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Eliminative
• Materialism
• Dalai
• Lama
• Imagination
• Neuroscience
• Neuroethics
• Morality
• Physicalism
• Property
• Dualism
• Philosophy
• of
• Science
• Vitalism
• mirror
• LennyBound

[ZeusDeusEx]

"There's just the cells and the way they are put together". That's egocentric. What she mentioned is what we observe. But we do also, in a sense, observe consciousness. So it's there too. But these two things might be the same thing. She should ask herself about her own experienced correlation between the consciousness of an observed brain, and that observed conscionsness (brain) itself.

[seigneurvoland666]

this doesnt hinder on my spirituality aftr all coolz

[yankskiller34]

@prgalois To give future science direction.

[EvolvedAtheist]

@kebass

Oh! You mean metaphysical musings such as those that have been falsified by scientific discoveries. Pat Churchland would probably be among the first to argue that philosophers will never answer questions about consciousness without a firm foundation of scientific data.

I'd be among the first to argue that neuroscientists, and not philosophers will answer any answerable questions about consciousness.

[kebass]

@prgalois The fact that you would even ask that question shows your inability to grasp the nature of the philosophical enterprise. To put it succinctly, the point of philosophy is to rigorously, systematically attempt to answer questions like the one you have just posed, ones which science does not have a chance at answering.

[prgalois]

- "concepts such as belief, free will, and consciousness will likely need to be revised as science understands more about the nature of brain"

So, what's the point of philosophy?

[K2nsl3r]

A fantastic exposition of a uniform, productive and increasingly credible (in the light of evidence) methodological outlook. Time will tell whether it will need to modified, and to what extent. But interesting new perspectives it certainly delivers.