 Hello my friends and welcome to another interview breakdown edition of Patterson in Pursuit. I am your host, Steve Patterson. Today we are breaking down the interview I had with Dr. John Searle talking about the philosophy of mind. I had a blast doing it and I want to break down the ideas and give you my own personal worldview and analysis of that interview. But before we start I want to give another round of sincere thank yous and shout outs to a bunch of new Patreon supporters. This includes Mr. Darius Thornton, Cecil Williams, Jerry Burdot, Luke, Steve Wilson, and Jeff Rodriguez. In addition to about ten other Patrons who are now supporting at lower levels, thank you all so much for contributing to the production of this show and the creation of a more rational worldview. All of the Patrons of the show are first in line to receive a free copy of the book Square One, The Foundations of Knowledge, which hopefully will be out by the end of next month, talking about some of the most important ideas in philosophy. If you would like to add yourself to that list, check out patreon.com slash Steve Patterson. You can sign up to become a patron of the show and chip in a dollar or two every time a new episode is released. So what I found particularly endearing about Dr. John Searle is his communication style because he's very blunt, he doesn't hold back, and like me, he doesn't give an arbitrary deference to academicians. He says a few times in this interview, quite frankly, yes, I think that the way philosophers have been phrasing this issue is dumb and stupid. Now, I disagree with him on this point, but there are plenty of other areas in philosophy, which I agree that the framework in which the professional intellectuals have framed the particular issue is stupid, counterproductive, and there's usually some obvious resolution that everybody seems to be overlooking. I think this is one reason why my own academic experience was so unsavory. I would ask questions that seemed obvious or important, and they would kind of be dismissed by the professors. If you can sympathize with that position, if you know what I'm talking about, then I do have some good news for you. The sponsor of the show is a company called Praxis, and they specialize in taking young people either out of school or before they go into school and placing them straight into the real world, skipping academia altogether if you so desire. Praxis gives you a paid apprenticeship. They teach you real world job skills, and after you complete their program, they'll guarantee you a $40,000 a year job offer. Plus, the net cost of the program to you is $0. Now, that might sound too good to be true, but in fact, it isn't. Praxis is the only company that I know of that is doing this. They've had success. I know several people who have gone through the program, who've been employed through the program, and they all rave about it. It's currently exploding in popularity, so if you want to get on board now, head over to discoverpraxis.com. On their homepage, they have a button that says Schedule a Call. Click it, set up a time to talk to them, and see if that sounds right for you. So speaking of putting your mind to things, what is the mind anyway? In the history of philosophy, there are lots and lots of different answers to that question. For many years, I have called myself a reluctant duelist, meaning I think the most accurate explanation of a phenomena I experience is that there are two types of existent things. You have physically, spatially existent things, that would be matter. And then you have mental phenomena, which certainly exist, and yet their existence is non-spatial. So for example, what's been called qualia, or how things feel like. Is some part of the universe, it is some existent phenomena, and yet it is not fundamentally reducible to spatial existence. I would say mental phenomena in general, ideas, are existent and yet their existence is non-spatial. So that forces me into something like a duelist position, which unfortunately comes with a lot of additional baggage that can be somewhat difficult to sort out. This metaphysical perspective is historically contrasted to monism, sometimes called monism, which says that ultimately, all existent things can be reduced to one realm. In the modern day, that reduction is to the physical world, that everything fundamentally is reducible to the laws of physics and to spatially existent phenomena. There is another school of thought that reduces everything to the mental realm, you could call it idealism, that ultimately everything reduces to ideas. There is an extreme form of physicalism, which is called reductive physicalism, that says the way we talk about consciousness is so weird, it's so wild, that it necessarily implies dualism and therefore consciousness doesn't even exist. Now, I think this position is certainly false. And if you remember my interview with Dr. Westacott at the beginning of this series, he also thinks that position is certainly false. But John Searle tries to split a hair in a really interesting way. I think he has one foot in the monist camp and one foot in the duelist camp. He also thinks that reductive physicalism is stupid, as he calls it. He might even say that it's certainly wrong. But he doesn't think that implies dualism is true. He calls this position biological naturalism and that's what I spoke to him about. Now, I don't think he actually resolves what he tries to resolve. In fact, I think he gives a great deal of material for the duelist, but you'll have to listen for yourself. So I tried to start off this interview by presenting the oddity of consciousness that in our usual physical explanation for how the world works, it incorporates matter. We're talking about matter bumping into each other and exploding in various ways. But that doesn't include subjective first-person experience. When we're talking about billiard balls bumping into each other, you don't have persons, you don't have experience, you don't have awareness. But before I could even finish how I wanted to phrase the question, he jumped in and said, no, no, you've already made an error. Take a listen. We see all kinds of physical phenomena in the world. We have a theory of the physical world works a certain way. We think it operates under certain principles. But it doesn't have this feature of consciousness. Well, it does. I mean, this is a big mistake in our culture is to suppose that somehow consciousness is not a part of the physical world. It is. It's a physical part of the physical world going on in our brains. And we have a tradition that says, no, no, there are two parts of the world. There's a physical part and there's a conscious part. That's wrong. Consciousness is part of the biological reality. And that is to say, it's part of the physical reality. However, since this vocabulary of physical and mental was designed to oppose each other, let's just get rid of the word physical. And let's just say consciousness is part of the real world. It's part of our biology. It's caused by brain processes and goes on in our brain. And it's a crucial part of our biology. And you said earlier that you thought it's left out of physics. Not really. Now, physics properly understood, if you think of physics as a totality of the natural sciences, then that includes biology and biology includes consciousness. So that's pretty good articulation of the central part of his position. OK, so the reason I think a lot of people like myself get tripped up by this is when we're trying to explain physical phenomena, we have no reason to interject anything like awareness or feeling or sensitivity. How thorough you're going to be. Right. If you're just going to explain the structure of the molecule, you don't have to talk about awareness. If you're going to talk about the totality of reality, the totality of reality includes biology, and that means it includes life. It includes photosynthesis. It includes digestion. All of those are parts of reality. And along with photosynthesis and digestion is another biological phenomena, namely human and animal consciousness goes on in human and animal brains. And it's as I was pointing out earlier, desperately important. Civilization is created by consciousness. So right off the bat, we get into some really interesting metaphysical claims here. The way that I think physical reality works is fundamentally that you can explain physical phenomena as he puts it by understanding the structure of the atom or the way that I would put it as base level physics will fundamentally fully explain higher level physics. So there's no such thing as emergent phenomena where if somehow if you assemble base particles in a particular way, boom, you get a new thing that pops into existence. And it doesn't sound like pretty explicitly that's John Searle's position. So when he talks about photosynthesis or digestion, it sounds like he is implying those things cannot be fully explained by just base level physics. That somehow biology is a new adds new information to what physics brings to the table. And off the bat, I think this is a rather peculiar way of viewing the physical world. I think digestion, properly understood, will fully be explained by understanding the relative position, momentum, trajectory of matter and understanding how the transmission of energy happens. I don't think there's any new information that gets presented by biology. You just kind of have a different layer of explanation of the underlying phenomena. But I would claim this is not going on with consciousness. I think if you had a complete and full understanding of the position of every unit of matter in the universe, you knew every physical feature of the universe, you would fully explain in complete detail processes like digestion and photosynthesis and biological phenomena. But I don't think you would explain conscious phenomena, which is how things feel like from a subjective first person perspective. So we continue. Now, you said earlier that you think it's a it's a big mistake that philosophers have kind of divided the world into the absolutely total disaster. There are two twin mistakes and they pretend to be opposed to each other. But in fact, they're the same mistake. One is the tradition of God, the soul and immortality. And the other is the tradition of scientific materialism. They both make the same mistake. They both say consciousness is not an ordinary part of the physical world. So God, the soul and immortality says there's a separate realm, the conscious realm. And scientific materialism says, well, either there is no such thing as consciousness or if it is, it's not really a part of the real world. It's not part of the world of of molecules, electrons and photosynthesis. And I'm saying it's obvious that it's part of the real world. It's a biological part and all consciousness, known consciousness, at least exists in human and animal brains and it's caused by brain processes. So we've got these twin idiotic traditions and they both make the same mistake of refusing to recognize consciousness as a real part of the real world. I'm not actually convinced that's true. It depends on what you mean by the real world. A lot of people, especially in the modern world, conceive of the real world as being synonymous with the physical spatiotemporal world. And if you think of the real world being that, then in fact, I think you can make a case that consciousness is not part of the real world. However, the way that I would define the real world is all phenomena that exist. And in that circumstance, it's fairly obvious that consciousness is a phenomena and therefore it's part of the real world. I also disagree that the dualistic position necessarily entails God, the soul and immortality. Historically, that might be the case, but you have people like David Chalmers, who are atheists, I don't think believe in immortality and yet still claim that conscious phenomena are existent and necessarily non-spatial. Then I tell Dr. Searle what I just told you. So a question that I have for you because I've not been able to sort this out. I have for many years called myself a reluctant dualist because I wish I weren't because I think it implies some things that I wish it I wish it didn't. So I hope that you can help me sort sort through this. Yeah, dualism is so idiotic, it's hardly worth stating. But anyway, a lot of our dualists would go ahead. Now, this I just frankly don't think is true. I mean, it's funny, but I don't think it's accurate to claim that dualism is just so idiotic, it's not worth mentioning. Is it hyperbole? I'm not sure, to be honest. So here's an interesting fact to note. I was listening to an interview that Dr. Searle gave and he was saying something I thought was rather respectable. But virtually nobody says it. He was saying, look, I'm actually not that familiar with the history of philosophy and I'm not that familiar with the ways that philosophers have talked about issues like consciousness and materialism. And he said, I think that gives me a strength because I have a fresh perspective. Or the way that I would put it is he avoids framing errors because he's not listening to how other people have framed the argument. I think there's a great deal of merit to that. However, in this particular circumstance, it might be a mistake because at several points throughout this interview, he seems to be making the dualist claim, but then turns around and says he's not making the dualist claim. So I would be so bold as to claim it doesn't sound like his position is either aware or will accept what I think his claims imply. If you say that consciousness is fundamentally a non reducible phenomena, you might actually be forced into the dualist perspective. But keep listening. Let's talk about the actual status of conscious state. So you say, is it the case that consciousness is fundamentally something that that is spatially located somewhere in space? And with MRI, you can actually see the spatial location of conscious processes in your brain. The brain lights up certain parts of the brain light up when you think about certain questions. So consciousness is spatially located. It is spatial dimensions. And furthermore, it's like all machine processes. It's defined by energy transfers at an electrochemical level. And we don't know what what they are, but there's a lot of good work work going on on a brain processing right now. OK, so that's a critical point. Keep it in mind. Dr. Searle says clear as day, consciousness is spatially located. We'll come back to that. So I ask him kind of a half sincere question because I want him to elaborate on this point. So consciousness is spatially located. OK, and it's in the brain. So what does that mean you have stuff, actual stuff in that's located inside your skull, inside your brain? Does that does that mean it's like a liquid or a juice or something? OK, so is it something when you say that it has some kind of spatial location, does that mean it's something like a liquid, something physical actual feature of the brain? Well, it's like liquid in the sense that the liquidity is not a separate substance secreted by molecules. So consciousness, not a separate juice secreted by the brain. It's a condition that the brain is in. OK, so when you say that it's a it's a higher level. Yeah, it means it's a phenomenal level of neurons and synapses. There are some features of the whole system. The same way you can't save any water molecule that this one is liquid. Nonetheless, liquidity is a feature of the whole system. A molecule, so consciousness, a feature of the whole brain. Now, wait a second. It's a higher level feature of the brain. It's a state that the brain is in. So this is a really weird hierarchical view of metaphysics, where you have base level phenomena and then when they're arranged in a particular way, you get these new actually existent features in things like liquidity is out there in the world. Consciousness is not the base level processes. It's something that emerges when you stick a bunch of things together. Not only do I disagree with that, but I think it's a very, very dicey position to take because then you have to somehow explain how it is the case that new things like that come into existence. So it would have to be that the universe is structured such a way whereby there are certain rules in place. Those rules dictate that if such and such bits of matter are arranged in such and such particular ways, a new thing, an actually spatially existent new thing will come into the universe and then will exist for some period of time. And then if the particular arrangement of bits of matter changed, that thing, liquidity, for example, will pop out of the universe and then won't exist anymore. That seems like you've got to have a lot of layers of explanation to explain how such a thing could happen. It seems like a much easier and more a simpler world view is to say, well, liquidity in those higher level features he's talking about are actually just concepts. Those are just descriptions and labels on experiences that don't have objective existence separate of our experience of them. So in your metaphysical world view, you have different states of ontological status. You have base level and then on top of that, you have something that's kind of categorically higher. And then you have like a striation of different types. Areas of dependence. Life depends on big carbon based molecules, for example. Consciousness depends on neuronal structures. So you do have dependency relations, but these are all real features. Life is a real feature of the world. Wait, wait, so there is such a thing as life in the universe, which is not able to be fully explained by the movement of matter and energy. That life has a different type of ontological status. He calls it dependent. What is the nature of life such that it cannot be fully explained by the movement of matter and energy? When we're talking about things in the universe, it may be true that you see different phenomena that is dependent on lower level phenomena, base phenomena. But fundamentally, what exists, all that exists is just the base level phenomena. It's just it's a matter. Base level phenomena are organized in the systems when the systems have higher level features like solidity and liquidity that are not features of the base level phenomenon. So for solidity and liquidity, I would say something like those are words that we use to describe some higher level status. But it's fundamentally its existence is something that's conceptual. Solidity isn't actually a feature of the physical world. It is. It is a physical world. If it weren't, I wouldn't be leaning against this desk right now. This is a critical point, and I think that it's flawed. This strikes me as circular reasoning. He's trying to say that solidity certainly exists as an objective feature of the universe. And if it didn't, I would fall through the chair that I'm sitting on. So what I'm saying is the word solidity references a concept. In a world without minds, you would not have solidity per se. Now, when you arrange bits of matter in a particular way, those arrangements of matter also behave in certain ways. We label the behavior of those particular arrangements of matter, let's say as being solid or being liquid. But the solidity itself does not exist separate of our conception of it. This is no different than the existence of chairs. If you remember my earlier piece on why chairs do not exist or why chairs are concepts, a chair is simply a label on bits of matter that are arranged in a particular way. All that actually exists are the bits of matter. But that metaphysical position does not imply that you can't sit on what we call chairs, that somehow if I were correct, you would fall through the floor. There would be no such thing as chairs. Solidity or chairness or any other concept is something our minds are bringing to the table. Okay, another central, central question coming up. And listen very closely. Okay, so fundamentally, would you say that the base level constituent parts of the universe have in their nature the potential for conscious awareness? Absolutely, no question. I mean, that's trivially true. We know that's true because it happened. So here, I think we talk past each other for a little bit. So on the one hand, he's saying that bits of matter contain within themselves the potential for conscious experience. And then I ask him this. So when I say something like that, it makes me think of like a panpsychism. No, no, no, no, no. Panpsychism. There's so many idiotic things out there said about conscious. But panpsychism is one of the most idiotic. Panpsychism says everything is conscious. Well, no, how could it be? Consciousness requires very specific mechanisms and you might do it without neurons, but you've got to duplicate the causal powers of neurons. And I don't know how you'd do that. Yes. Okay. So not panpsychism as understood as everything is literally conscious. I think my understanding was everything has every bit of the universe has whatever constituent prerequisites that are required to elicit consciousness. That seems to me not only implausible, but really preposterous. Which is funny because all I try to do is just for phrase my earlier question. Because consciousness as far as we know it is created by very specific kinds of neurobiological phenomena, namely a big systems of neurons and those are very special kind of cells. And the electrons in a jar of water just don't have anything like. Now again, I disagree with this. I think this is inconsistent. I think this is at least a metaphysical dualism. He's saying that the electrons by themselves don't have the capacity for consciousness. It's only when they're arranged in particular way that you get consciousness in very specific cells and neurons in the brain. But wait a second. What are neurons made of? They're made of bits of matter. They're made of fundamental bits of matter. So it must be the case that within each individual unit of the universe, whether it's an atom, whether it's an electron, whether it's a cork or a plank unit, you must have some potential for the future emergence of consciousness. So it's got to be in an atom. It doesn't mean that the atom is conscious. It means that it contains the potentiality for conscious awareness. Okay. So the next thing we talk about is subjectivity. My perspective, the dualistic perspective is that there are two realms of existence. You have objective existence and you have subjective existence, meaning you have first subjective first person experience, which is not fundamentally reducible to objective bits of matter. These are two different things and vice versa. Bits of matter aren't fundamentally reducible to subjective experience. That's the dualistic perspective. And Dr. Surla agrees with half of that. I'd like to talk about one other feature of consciousness, which is subjectivity. It appears to be that. The feature, that's the essence. The essence of consciousness is there's something that it feels like to be in any conscious state. And for that reason, any conscious state only exists insofar as there's some subject that so has it as a feature of its awareness. So subjectivity is an essential feature of consciousness, because it is what it's like for you, what it feels like. Okay. So would you say that there are two different types of ontological status? You have things which are ontologically objective and things which are ontologically subjective. Is that fair to say? Well, okay. But I don't reluctant to put it that way, because that makes it look like we're getting on the verge of dualism. I don't want to say that. My existing conscious state has all sorts of features that are ontologically objective. But nonetheless, there are some that are ontologically subjective, because that's a definition of consciousness. Wait, so there is such a distinction as ontological objectivity and subjectivity? Isn't this the dualistic perspective? So those which are ontologically subjective, can we talk a little bit about those? Sure. Yeah, there are processes that have this feature. Some of you that feels like to be in those processes. So right now I'm thinking about a philosophical question, and there's a certain subjective qualitative feel to that, and that's the subjectivity we've been talking about. That's going on in the brain, and it's essentially tied to a whole lot of brain processes. And those are ontologically objective in the sense that you can observe them on a fMRI, you can measure their electrochemical processes. So you would say it would be inaccurate to claim that all phenomena in the universe are fundamentally can be understood as being ontologically objective? Well, obviously that's some features that are ontologically subjective. That's why we're having this conversation. Okay, okay, I think I follow. So can you explain a bit how that doesn't result in something like a dualism? Because if I were to take it... What happens is there is an existing higher level feature of the brain. There are existing features of the brain that cause and sustain certain forms of subjectivity in the brain. Where's the dualism? So in this case... There are two separate realms, and that's not right. There's one realm that has a level of description where it is conscious and has another level of description where it's a neurobiological process. Those two levels of description of one in the same event So are you saying then the ontological distinction between subjective and objective is purely descriptive? Well, of course it describes a fact. And it describes an actual fact. Okay, now I thought I was following them. I thought this was the explanation. That okay, this is the resolution. There is one phenomena, and there's two different explanations of that one phenomena. The subjective explanation is not the objective. The objective is not the subjective, but ultimately there are two descriptions of one phenomena. So I thought okay, maybe that's the resolution, maybe that's the biological naturalist position. So yeah, and I ask, well does that mean that fundamentally the ontological distinction is something which is descriptive? It's only descriptive in nature. I thought the answer would be yes, of course, but he says no. They're descriptive insofar as they describe real features of parts of the universe. See, look, when I raise my arm, there's a description of the event where it's subjective. I'm trying to raise my arm. The very same event has a description where it consists of a whole lot of neuron firings and the secretion of acetylcholine at the axon end plates of the motor neurons. And there are not two different events there. There's one event with different levels of description. However, the description describes real features. I see. So when talking about ontology, you would say that ontological distinctions fundamentally are about description. That it's a valid description. No, it's not about description. They're about the world described by the descriptions. I'm trying. This position, at least I think, makes sense when you talk about ontological distinctions as being fundamentally descriptive in nature. And he keeps saying no. It describes parts of reality. But if that's true, then what another way of rephrasing that is to say there are some phenomena which cannot be explained without using an entirely different language, a different conceptual toolbox, and regardless of your physical description of that phenomena, it will not encapsulate the knowledge that is gained by using mental vocabulary. This is very similar to an argument that I give to argue for the existence of dualism. Well, if that's the case, though, it seems like you have some type of existence which is ontologically subjective. Oh, that's right. You do have features of this event that are electrochemical and features that are subjective. One event. One event, but two descriptions. Not too ontological. No, no. The description described different ontological features. Now, if this weren't Dr. John Searle talking about biological naturalism, I would guess that most people listening to this, if they're professional philosophers, would say this man's a dualist. Like, with that particular exchange, that was the argument for dualism, which I was trying to make the argument for monism by saying you're just talking about layers of description, but he's saying no. We're talking about different parts of what happens in the real universe. Here's another approach at this. As a reluctant dualist, you could perhaps categorize me as a monist by simply saying all phenomena that exist and are happening are real. Now, okay, so they all meet that abstract criteria of real. But what I would say is, within that category of what are real things, you have subjective, you have mental, and you have objective, and you have physical. So if that means I'm a monist, okay, I'll take that perspective. But that doesn't actually solve the mind-body problem. All right, so the last thing I want to break down to talk about is when we're discussing the nature of observation in spatially-existent phenomena. Take a listen. Okay, and I think maybe one of the hesitations that people have has to do with the rule of observation in trying to explain phenomena. So would you say that these mental states or the actual state of awareness is something that is an externally observable phenomena? What you externally observe are both the neurobiological substrates and the physical behavior. But the actual experience itself is not a subject of observation because it has this essentially first-person ontology. I can see that you're awake, but I cannot see your inner feelings. I can't see the feeling, the wakefulness that you have. Okay, now I would agree with that, but again, that sounds like the dualist perspective, so we continue. So and then we're talking about that. We're talking about those particular feelings or those particular states that are non-observable. The idea that science is about the observable is of course absolutely crazy because most of the things that we interested in science like quarks, leopards, muons are not observable. But we have very good reasons to suppose they exist because they function causally. Right. And you can't observe consciousness in this sense of observe. You can't observe it. You can observe its effects, but you can't observe consciousness. In the same way, you can't observe subatomic particles, but you can observe their effects. Now, this seems like it's playing fast and loose with the definition of what is observable. So we're talking about quarks and gluons. Well, those things are observable in principle, right? If you're talking about any physical phenomena, it has to at least in principle be something that's observable. If we had sufficient technology, we could locate all where all the quarks are in space. But that's not the case when we're talking about consciousness. It sounds like we're talking about something that is ontologically subjective is something which isn't located in space and how that doesn't get you to dualism. I'm not sure. So this is where I ask him the question, right? He says that consciousness is fundamentally spatially located, and he says, but it's not observable. That naturally elicits the question. Okay, so if you can't observe the mental states, then I thought that the idea was fundamentally they are spatially located. So if they are spatially located, wouldn't we in principle be able to observe them? Well, you can observe the effects that they have on nervous systems or rather form of their realization. So with a fMRI, you can see this is where the guy's thinking about the Tower of Hanoi problem. You give a guy a problem and you got him in your MRI machine and you can see which parts of the brain light up when he's thinking about it. That's where the thought process is going on. You can observe the location of the thought process, but the actual subjective experience is not itself an object of observation, not even for the guy having. But the subjective experience is something which is certainly existent, but... That's right. Does it have a spatial representation, the actual experience? Of course. I mean, you can see it where exactly it's spatial location in the brain. Wait, what? Doesn't that mean it's observable though? I mean, if you can see... Okay, what counts as observing it? Yes, you can observe it. You can see... Look, I mean, the experimenter's going to say, look, right there in the brain, that's where the guy's thinking about the Tower of Hanoi problem. Now that, I'll be honest, strikes me as a contradiction. It is observable, it isn't observable in principle, but it is observable, and it is spatially existent. But that actual feeling, the actual experience of, is and it isn't. The trouble is, when he's talking about consciousness, sometimes he's talking about it as a brain process, and sometimes he's talking about it from the subjective first-person experience. And it seems like this is actual proof that these are two different things. If I am talking about my conscious experience, and you're pointing to my brain phenomena, that is not the same thing. Now, there might be a correlation. There seems to be a very strong correlation, but it seems like fundamentally what I am referencing some particular phenomena in the universe that is how it feels like to do something, and you're looking at an MRI scanner, and you're saying, oh, look, that's how it feels like to do something. You can't do that. We're necessarily talking about two things in the universe. One is the consciousness, one is the awareness, one is the brain process. And I don't think we can just smoosh them together like this, or you get results where you say things like it is observable and it isn't observable. It is spatially represented, but it isn't spatially represented. But you're not seeing the actual... The actual subjective experience is not itself an object of vision by some third person. But it is located. Of course. I mean, we actually now have enough evidence to tell you exactly where it's located. Now, frankly, that doesn't make sense to me, but if you are listening to this and you say, ah, I know what Dr. Sorrell meant, leave a comment on the YouTube posting, let's talk about it, because that doesn't make sense to me. Though I love the idea of trying to resolve the mind-body problem this way, I just think it fails, and in fact, I think this is an excellent demonstration of why dualism is a superior explanation for the phenomena that we experience than is monism. So naturally, I ask him this. So would you say that there are some objectively existent things which have spatial location and yet cannot be located by an external observer? That there are... You can locate there. Yes, you can see the spatial location. What you're asking though is a category mistake. That is, you see the subjective experience. No, you don't. What you see is the spatial location of the subjective experience. You can see its dimensions. You can see how wide it is and where it occurs in the brain, but you don't see the experience itself. I agree. I definitely agree with that, but... So how can anybody disagree? This is just something that doesn't make sense. Yes, but for me, it's that pulls me into something like a dualism. Okay, so that's it. That's my breakdown of the interview I have with Dr. John Searle. You'll have to make up your own mind. Maybe I'm the one that's overlooking something or maybe it's Dr. Searle. Either way, I really hope you enjoyed it. I hope it was as intellectually stimulating a conversation for you as it was for me. That's it for me. Have a great week.