Patricia Churchland on Neurophilosophy

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 explanatorily impotent and unnecessary.

Category:

Education

Tags:

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

[Huesos138]

I have to go off topic for a moment and ask: is Mrs. Churchland an epistemological naturalist as well?

[LennyBound]

Yup.

[Xenophanes21]

can I favorites this twice?

[jonobrow]

She's gorgeous!

[Tejinojin]

2:03. over and over. its my new favorite thing.

[KnowKnot]

@vsaluki Largely because your imagination is bound by tradition.

[KnowKnot]

@kasaduhallo Qualia. Get off it. Go back to Chalmers if you need to choke on that. The "problem." which well may be an illusion, is "unsolved." But, as was the case when the sun circled the earth, or flies were generated spontaneously, reality is defined by neither superstition nor limited by limited imaginations.

[KnowKnot]

@Trailer1220 No need to feel sorry. (Which is belittling, thanks much.) I am my body, my small self on this small earth. And the breadth of my love for my children, my joy in other's faces, depth of shared suffering, and sense of awe at everything that is defies your pity. Defiantly and absolutely.

[mentalphysicalism]

Simply because the dominant object of our consciousness is usually from our

outer senses does not mean that physicality must be our only point of reference.

We are also conscious of our inner self called a mind so we can also use the mind

as a point of reference. Mind and brain are both givens so neither has to come from

the other as they are both aspects of one single entity.

[SvR2011Storylines]

@jonobrow you cant be serious

[Trailer1220]

"That which is not comprehended by the mind but by which the mind comprehends.. That which is not seen by the eye but by which the eye sees.. That which is not drawn by the breath but by which the breath is drawn.. Thus is the inexpressible, invisible, inaudible, and unthinkable ground of all existence."

I just feel sorry for those that have missed the only source of meaning; the ineffable, immaterial quality of conscious experience. Energy does not exist in a wire, it simply travels across it.

[4Dmetricology]

@souciance

this is a scientist not a philosopher.

She is not giving an opinion, like you yap on about. She is describing what the Method has shown.

And do learn to respect your betters. Dr. Churchland would make you piss your pants in public were you to meet her.

[4Dmetricology]

@kasaduhallo

now that is funny.

[HomuncuIus]

Wow! An intelligent woman!