Is Consciousness Fundamental? Interfaces of Reality & Mathematizing Phenomenology | Robert Prentner - Mind-Body Solution

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Robert, thanks so much for joining me.
I've been reading your work for so many years.
It's it's been a long time coming.
I've read all your papers with Prakash Fields Hoffman.
You guys are pioneers in this field.
And something you actually extend on Donald Hoffman's work.
He's someone who's familiar on this channel.
He's been on the channel many times.
And you work on the interface theory of perception, and your

(00:30):
own emphasis seems to be more onthe process in mathematics.
Do you see your work? So this is just a primate?
Do you see your work as a natural evolution to Don's work,
or do you see there seems to be a slight departure from his?
Right. First of all, thanks for having
me here. It's a pleasure to be here.

(00:50):
So I was, I was very lucky a fewyears ago that I could
collaborate with Don for, for, for several years now.
And it's still ongoing actually.Now coming to your question, I
think the if you, if you buy into the interface theory of
perception or if you, if you, ifyou maintain it like I do, then

(01:13):
one natural question is what would you do with this
information? What would you do then?
So the interface theory of perception basically says
perception has been shaped by evolution to be useful, useful
meaning allowing an agent to actin a certain way, which is good
for the agent, evolutionarily speaking.

(01:34):
And it also entails that we thereby not necessarily see the
true structure of reality. Now the question is, if you have
this statement, what are you going to do with it?
And, and, and that's very much an open statement, an open
question. I mean, you, you, you, you can
probably do various things. And one of the things which I
think are, but which, which I think is the most interesting

(01:55):
thing is to expand this to consciousness.
And I mean, there's a lot of work already and that has been
done in the vicinity of consciousness.
And, and you already mentioned some of that.
And so another thing which I didover the last couple of years is
the study of phenomenology, which is the name for a specific

(02:17):
philosophical school of trying to systematically approach first
personal or subjective experience.
There's some subtleties or we can go into that later maybe.
And I'm very interested in this question, whether you or how you
can connect interface theory of perception with this more
subjectivity based approach in phenomenology.

(02:40):
So I think that's a it's a natural fit.
So the way how I see it and one,one way of seeing consciousness
or this question of consciousness is to try to bring
together 2 perspectives on this phenomenon.
On the one hand, you have a first personal perspective which
studies the brain and what the brain is doing and what
computers maybe are doing. And on the other hand is first

(03:04):
person perspective, the subjectivity like perspective.
So how what it, what, what it's like to whatever.
And so I see the interface here of Perception very interestingly
lying on his first personal side, and I want to add his
first personal perspective to it.
Well, I guess I jumped the gun abit.

(03:25):
I should have asked for you to define that.
But I mean, you've, you've done so very eloquently.
But I think since you've broughtup in traditional philosophy of
mind consciousness, it's it's often treated as this inner
theatre and and your view treatsit instead as a relational
interface. Does this dissolve the hard
problem of consciousness, or does it simply reframe it?

(03:48):
So I'm in philosophy, you meet two types of people.
The first type is kind of not bothered by the hard problem at
all and think it's a kind of pseudo program.
And the second type really takesit seriously and think it's
really a problem. And I'm of course I'm, I'm, I'm
of the second kind. I think it's, it's, it's an
important thing to say. I mean, one reaction to our

(04:11):
problem would be to say, OK, it's it's it's, it's a kind of
artifact of doing some bad metaphysics and then asking how
consciousness fits in the picture.
That's one way of seeing it. But it still leaves open various
problems. I mean, there, there.
This correlates between what thebrain is doing and what you're
subjectively experiencing. And you still need to explain
that somehow. So even if you say, OK, the

(04:32):
metaphysical frame is kind of wrong and the hard problem shows
you that it's basically a symptom of that you, you still
have a lot of work to do. And so one thing I would say is
the hub problem in some sense forces my hand to, to, to take

(04:53):
on a new perspective. So I think the, the, the kind of
standard physicalism or standardmaterialism just won't do.
It's just not fit for the job ofexplaining consciousness.
Now together with this insight from the interface theory of
perception that this idea of having an observer independent
reality out there is maybe not agood idea.

(05:17):
Together these these two ideas suggest something like a more
relational approach to reality, which I currently think just.
OK, so reality. Let's let's see it from this
lens. If consciousness is interface,
not essence, but interface, whatwhat would you say grounds its

(05:37):
ontological status? Is it merely epistemic
convenience, or does it, Or doesthe interface have its own
metaphysical reality? So I wouldn't say consciousness
is the interface. I, I would say the way how we
subjectively experience the world is through an interface.
Of course, that still is open. This important question that you

(05:58):
just asked. What, what is this interface?
I mean, what's the metaphysical status of this interface?
And they, they, they, I would actually say I'm, I'm not 100%
sure just because of the very fact that I think this, this,
this whole metaphysical game in the end is, is somewhat of a
weird thing that many people actually were playing, but which

(06:19):
I don't think is, is so fruitful.
But I, I would say if, if, if you, if you, if you start with
consciousness and, and if, if, if part of consciousness
observes itself, then it distorts itself.
Yeah. I mean, it, it, it doesn't see

(06:41):
it as it, as it truly is. And I think that's the interface
idea. That just is this interface
idea. Yeah.
Because then you cash out the interface metaphysically as a
kind of collection of subjectiveexperiences that belong to one
agent or not. That's that's a possibility.
But I wouldn't be ultra automatic about that.
Yeah, it's it's it's something I've often thought about when

(07:01):
when when talking to idealist philosophers and trying to
understand exactly how they're going to approach the theory.
And I know you guys are working on this very mathematically.
One of the terms I love, I love talking about when I discuss
your work is how you guys are mathematizing phenomenology,
which is a beautiful statement. It's quite, it's quite, it's
almost oxymoronic when you thinkabout it to to do that.

(07:23):
But one of the main questions I did have was you just mentioned
this distortion that could happen if someone is perceiving
consciousness through a certain lens.
How does someone's relational substrate avoid, well, how does
yours at least avoid falling into a naive realism?
So how do you avoid this while saying that reality in itself,

(07:46):
we're not seeing it at at 100% because I've asked on this
question, it's, it's, it's almost difficult to to grasp
this. If we're not seeing reality as
it is and almost let's say at a probability of 100%, then what
are the chances that the idealist physicists are going to
find any form of truth from this?

(08:07):
Sorry, that's a that's a long winded question.
Yeah. So I, I, I think first of all,
I, I will distinguish different senses of of, of when, when,
when we perceive reality as it is or something like that.
Then there are, I would say different, slightly different
things that you could mean by it.
And and I mean as far as the interface year of perception is

(08:28):
concerned, it really just means the way how perceptual system
represent their environment. That's that's the pure technical
meaning. I would say that doesn't imply
necessarily something like a metaphysical, let's say approach
of ultra agnosticism. You cannot say anything that

(08:52):
that might be true actually, butit's not necessarily the case
when you just have this interface theory and it's an
additional step. So there are various other
things in addition to the stuff that that interface theory of
perception talks about. I mean, you have reasoning,
philosophical reasoning, I thinkthat's limited to, but well, you
have it. You have like a pure subjective

(09:16):
first personal experience and that might tell you a different
story altogether. So I.
Think, I think it's, it's like that for anyone.
So if you're a materialist trying to to explain things,
phenomena, philosophy, the nature of reality, everybody
gets stuck at some point. So it's it's it makes sense to
me that at some point there's going to be agnostic pictures

(09:38):
that are formed from such a groundbreaking thought process.
And in in your view, do you do you seeing it aligning more with
some sort of A and neutral monism or a dual aspect theory?
Or is it closer to some sort of a process metaphysics?
Well, I think if you, if you, ifyou take the interface theory
seriously, you are left with a few, with several options

(10:02):
actually. And I, I would count the things
that you said, neutral monism toall aspect theory, process,
relational view, standard idealism as it's kind of of
those options that are still on the table.
Now a more important thing I think is to realise that these

(10:23):
different labels, I mean, peoplecame up with them in order to
classify certain doctrines over the years.
I mean, just just, if you, if you look at the history of
idealism, for example, there is no such thing actually.
They're just different versions of different thinkers.
So even if you take the what we call paradigmatic idealists,

(10:45):
Berkeley, Leibnitz, can't they all have different, very
different systems and they even refer, didn't refer to
themselves as being idealists. Like Leibnitz for example, spoke
about his pre established harmonies and Berkeley talked
about immaterialism. So there are slight nuances
between those things and, and the if you, if you open up a

(11:07):
textbook on analytic philosophy or analytic metaphysics of the
20th century, then you will readit and you will send, OK, that
was dualism and there's physicalism and there's this and
that and this and that and this and that.
And then you have like these needs distinctions between them
and that's all. I mean, that's all fine as far
as it goes, but I think that's purely kind of textbook way of

(11:29):
making sense of a very long convoluted history.
It's not itself a kind of, you know, scientific treatise on
those things. I briefly touched on the fact
that you you argue for a sort ofa a mathematization of
phenomenology. What does a category theoretic?

(11:52):
It's a topological or topological formalization.
Capture that phenomenological description alone can't.
Yes. So I mean, there's before I come
to that and there's AI would saythere's a very important thing
to to, to to clarify. When one says mathematical
phenomenology, often what peopleoften have in mind is a kind of

(12:17):
very shallow. I'm not sure whether it's
shallow, but it's, it's just a description of what's going on
inside your head, so to say. And, and, and that's fine, of
course, and it's necessary if you, if you want to do some
research in psychology, for example, you, you probably need
it. But there's also a second
dimension to phenomenology, which I, which technically

(12:39):
people call it a transcendental direct not though not everyone
needs to be. I mean, there are different
varieties of of that as well, but I would say at the minimum,
one could say something like that.
Phenomenology is about the creation of meaning within a
certain interaction, I mean, within a certain process.

(13:01):
And actually that contains typically what we, what we call
subjective and objective aspects.
They're still first personal in the sense that we experienced it
or that it kind of underlies ourexperience.
It flows into our experience, but that doesn't necessarily
mean it's purely subjective. It's, it's a purely subjective

(13:21):
business what phenomenology is doing.
So that's that. I think that's, that's one
important thing to say in France.
Now the specific question, what mathematics actually adds to it?
I, I think that's, there are several reasons actually.
And there are several things that mathematics adds to that.
So that's why I mean, I like it obviously, but I would say the

(13:44):
most important one. Well, now it's hard to say which
one is the most important one, but one important one is
mathematics has on the one handed kind of clarifying role.
So a lot of people are talking about different stuff and no one
has, you know, everyone has their slide on kind of ways of

(14:04):
talking and mathematics is quite, quite precise actually at
it hammering down things. So that's a good word.
But I think more important than that I that that's already
important. But even more important is the
fact that if you want people whoare interested in phenomenology
or interested in the humanities or interested in the art or

(14:27):
whatever to be able to communicate or to integrate into
a more scientific study of the mind, then you need a common
basis of, of, of talking and a common language and, and, and
mathematics seems to be the the the best choice for this.
Yeah, Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's, it's, it's very

(14:48):
difficult to communicate with someone if they're not speaking
the same language, which is why I love philosophy when it comes
to trying to understand anythingscientific is because it gives
you those, that tool kit to, to discuss things.
And, and within philosophy, you've got someone like Husse
Husserl, who Hussellian phenomenology insists on, on the
irreducibility of lived experience by mathematizing

(15:13):
phenomenology. Do you, do you guys ever get
afraid that there's a risk of ofthe very reductionism that
phenomenology sort of resist in the first place?
Yes, I mean that's that's AI would say that's a that's a
common objection to this whole business to say, well, if you
use mathematics, then you're kind of you're already loose
kind of side of of of this basicideas in phenomenology.

(15:35):
And I think this danger exists and this danger exists
particularly then when people start, I call it an anything
goes approach to to mathematizing phenomenology.
So whatever, whatever works, youjust take it and you just write
it down and then then you look at this and say, well, why
should this be so I think this this this approach runs in into

(16:00):
exactly this danger. So you need certain
justifications and reasoning whyone particular way of applying
mathematics to this kind of converges at least with some
motifs that that that that that are typically mentioned in
phenomenology itself. So I don't think actually that
mathematics by itself, mathematics is the same as as as

(16:27):
reducing stuff to, I don't know,quantitative reasoning or so
that's the the to 1 application of mathematics.
But mathematics is is a very rich, a very rich thing.
I mean, it's mainly about structures and that's that seems
to be what phenomenology is really.
Interested in, I mean, and you can see that with the the way

(16:48):
you guys approach the work, the way you approach the work, you
can tell that it's, it's, I mean, you can sort of tell when
someone's purely reducing something to the sum of its
parts. But this is someone trying to
understand the whole system while trying to break it down to
understand the whole system. And in one of your papers, I
think it was the topological, structured phenomenological

(17:09):
spaces, phenomenal spaces. I, I know you suggested that
experience has a sort of geometry.
And what would you say is the philosophical significance of
treating qualia as structured topological spaces rather than
ineffable states? So let's, let's talk about some
of these positives. What, what kind of work we get
done with this now, now that we've set this premise and this

(17:32):
baseline? I mean, a very, very, very basic
thing is if if you want to classify experiences or types of
experiences, then you would needa kind of a very useful way to
classification scheme. So very much to to what people,
people in in earlier days in biology actually did this animal

(17:53):
or bad animal or this animal or dead animal.
And I just think this whole ideaof geometry, geometry, give me a
geometry or topology of things is very useful if you want to
come up with such a classification scheme.
Now let me, let me say, let me say one more thing to, to, to,
to this, to this reductionism topic, because it triggered me a

(18:14):
little bit. I I actually think that's one of
the difficulties in some, not all, but in some idealist
positions that they're very reductive in the end.
They try to reduce everything tosome very simple whatever.

(18:35):
And I think that's one of the dangers which we one of the
traps we shouldn't fall into. That's exactly what we, what
phenomenologist actually like rightfully criticize when, when,
when, when doing about this naturalization strategies.
And that's also true for some non physicalist theories.

(18:56):
Yes, yes. And how do you go about doing
that, Robert? Is it, is it, is it difficult?
Because as, as an idealist, I think because, I mean, look, if
you look at the last 30 years, let's say, and you see how this
wheel of time is occurring. And previously idealism was huge
and then slowly materialism tookhold again.
And now it seems to be growing and thriving again.
But as it's doing so, you've gota whole bunch of materialists

(19:18):
who grew up in this world who see it as a non scientific
approach. I'm not saying I do.
I'm saying that this is the perception some people have, and
then you're stuck trying to explain this, and the more
detailed you you get, the more they start accusing you of being
too reductionist. So it's almost like you're stuck
between a rock and a hard place trying to explain yourself in
both sides. So how do you guys approach

(19:38):
that? Right.
I mean, that's the you, you're perfectly right to point out the
dialectic that that that's really a kind of pity.
And then it happens often time. Well, you hear a lot of people
who talk about experience that you need to, you need, you need
to integrate experience into thenatural order of things.
And I'm always a bit, you know, sometimes feel a bit uneasy

(20:01):
about that. I think experience is just not
integratable. It's just, it's crazy.
And, but the important thing is if it happens, what, what then?
What happens then? And so I think you, you, you,
you need to come up with a with a framework, with theory,
ideally mathematical, of course.Well, let's just say with a,

(20:21):
with a kind of rational theory that lets you explains this,
this process of having an experience and then something
happens and it's completely it shatters everything that you
believe, but it still leads to acertain kind of noticeable
change in your behaviour in the way how you kind of perceive the

(20:41):
world, how you how you approach the world.
And I think that's that's, that's already if, if we can get
to that, that would be already great.
Your, your lab explodes some incredible stuff, one of them
being you. You guys touch on artificial
phenomenology. How, how do we, I mean, us
exploring this podcast and this the mind body problem comes in

(21:03):
this reality. It's what it's my favorite topic
and it's always fun to see what people are doing with it.
How do you or how can we distinguish between a simulated
phenomenological system or a structured one in in in humans
or non artificial systems? Yes.
So that's, that's a, that's a very urgent question I think.

(21:24):
And you know, you, you have a lot of kind of research coming
up. It's still considered to a bit
fringy, but you know, it gets more into the mainstream of this
relation between AI and consciousness.
And I think that's a very important question and a very
important kind of research. But I think also think that most

(21:45):
people think about it the wrong way.
And the the the current way to think about this is to say, OK,
let's use AI to don't know, reproduce a particular
computational abstract artefact in the world, let's say the
human brain, let's try to reproduce it.
Look whether the AI realises a certain computational function

(22:07):
that is also performed by the brain, global workspace or
whatever. I think that focus on one
particular artifact, but it misses much more there is to
say. I mean the consciousness is is
much bigger than that I think. So the way how I think about it

(22:27):
is the question to to, to, to, to ask a much more modest
question. And the question would be how
can we use AI to modify or engineer those what I call
interfere or what the interface theory of perception calls
interfaces to reality. That doesn't necessarily mean
that we use AI to construct conscious or to build conscious

(22:49):
machines. It just says, OK, well, let
let's let's try to figure out first how or whether AI is
useful when we think about expanding or changing or
whatever, exploring our interface to reality.
One of the things I think I readwas the is it an SLP test where
I think you propose that? Alternatively, I recently, I

(23:12):
recently published a paper aboutthat.
Yeah, I mean, if you, if you, if, if you're sympathetic to, to
what what I just said, then one question would be how to assess
those interfaces, how to, you know, in AI research now it's
very fashionable to have all these benchmarks.

(23:33):
You have a benchmark for this and benchmark for that and and
so on. And then then, you know, the big
companies, they, they, they kindof, they compete with the
models. What model is better with this
benchmark or that better and? And they all fighting with
grants and funds and it's the perfect.
Yes, I mean, that's not just an academia apparently that's

(23:54):
always the case. Now the natural questions, of
course, what, what would that mean?
If you, if you think about the benchmark for consciousness, I
mean to put it very naively, andI mean that's already quite
problematic, especially if you believe that intelligence and
consciousness are two different things.

(24:14):
Then we could say, well, OK, those benchmarks are maybe,
maybe that that's an argument tohave.
But there are people who know more about these benchmarks than
I do, whether they're a good measure for intelligent
behaviour or for intelligence. But if you believe in this
dissociation between consciousness and intelligence,

(24:35):
it's completely open whether that has anything to do with
consciousness. And these SLP tests that you
briefly mentioned are actually away of of, of of where I try to
say, OK, if we, if we want to subject those interfaces to, to,
to, to, to a similar benchmark like test, then you would you

(24:56):
would do such a thing like an SAP test.
For anyone who does, who's not familiar, do you?
Can you give us an example of one of them?
Well, there are no examples of, of, of, of any of them because I
mean, I just, I just recently thought about this thing.
So I'm very happy actually, if someone has good ideas.
So I, I maybe, maybe maybe we can, I can briefly explain S

(25:19):
this stays for subjective. So it's about language, whether
language model, for example, starts talking about
consciousness, but it's not justabout the the question whether
it talks like, like it, because I mean, surely it will do.
I mean, we humans speak about consciousness all the time and
large language models are very good at picking up those

(25:41):
regularities. But it's also the question
whether whether the fact that you talk about it also have an
has an effect on the behaviour on or continued whatever modes
of existence or processing of these of these things.
The L test is very similar, but it's not about language, but

(26:01):
it's about emergent types of behaviour.
Again, it's not the question of the behaviour as such, of the
problem solving as such, but about whether this problem
solving is kind of integrated into a, a larger process that is
about the the sustainance of this program where it continues
to exist. And then the third test, the P

(26:23):
test, P stands for phenomenology.
It's this question how interfaces present data or
structure data that they get, and whether that aligns with
certain principles that you alsofind in the phenomenological
literature. Well, this is a perfect call to
action. If anyone's watching or
listening, try and give us examples of an SLP test in the
comment section as an alternative to the basic curing

(26:45):
test of of course, when when we're operationalizing these, he
says. I mean, we briefly touched on
this, but let's just one last time go into it.
How, how, how much are you guys working on this while trying to
avoid collapsing into behaviourism?
Is that something you're constantly thinking about, or is

(27:07):
it something you just you, you've decided?
You know what? We're doing this properly.
We're doing great work. Let's just continue and enjoy
ourselves. Well, I mean when when when you
say behaviorism, I'm not 100% sure what you are actually
meaning. We're operationalizing
phenomenological richness. So if you're if you're trying to
do that, it's it's oh, it's verysimilar to sort of a behaviorism

(27:30):
outlook. It slightly is, would you say
that that's something you you try you guys look into or not
really? So I would, I would actually say
it's not, it's not, it's it's very different from behaviorism.
But I mean then of of course, then then the questions how,
how, how you define things, right.
So when when you say behaviorism?

(27:51):
I just mean, yeah. The association, yeah, the
association that I have is, is just to say, OK, looking at what
the system does, you kind of, I don't know that that's
everything there is to the system.
And then I would say, no, it's exactly not what the system
does. It's it's more about how the
system does things. I mean, it's important that the

(28:12):
system does something which is interesting, but the question is
how it does it. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe it's
closer to an interpretability idea.
OK, yeah. And when I look at your work, by
the way, I don't think you're a behaviourist.
When I, when I look at your work, I see sort of a very
processional side to it. It's very intertwined and

(28:34):
interconnected, which is beautiful to watch and to
explore. How does your, does your work
align with that of Whitehead's process metaphysics?
Do you ever, do you ever look into that?
Do you know there's a lot of similarities there?
Yes, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a bigfan of Whitehead and I think
he's, he was probably the the greatest metaphysician of the
20th century, but he was also one of the most difficult ones.

(28:58):
There's so many things. So I often rewrite it and, and,
and, and I think, oh, it's, it'sbeautiful.
It's great. And then at one point I was
like, now I don't understand it anymore.
So it's really hard to make sense of in in that sense.
I would say, well, yes, definitely.
But no, if you mean by it, you know, there there's a school of

(29:24):
Whiteheadians and they, they really get into the stuff and
you really start to adopt this, this this way of thinking.
Also the concepts in the jungle.And I try to avoid that a little
bit because it means ultra difficult.
Yeah, it's, it's almost like it's, it's so, it's so
consuming. It can become a sort of
religious view at some point, yes, yeah.

(29:45):
Which I've seen many of my friends, that's happened to them
quite, quite a bit, where there's nothing about their life
that isn't white Hadian in a sense.
Yes, you, you, you can, you can,you can really color everything
or you look at everything for this lens.
I mean, by the way, I mean this process theology thing which
happened in the in the 20th century.
And it's a prime example actually of, of how white Hadian

(30:07):
thought and religious thought came together.
I mean, it's, it's, it's a very,I think it's a very interesting
approach, but it has certain difficulties.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. He's a he's an absolute legend
in the field. But your work beautifully
bridges AI and the humanities. How can phenomenology and art

(30:28):
actually inform artificial regions beyond me?
A metaphor. Yes.
So, I mean, at first, maybe I, Iwould, I would, I would go the
other way around. Maybe, maybe then that clarifies
already this question as well. So I'm very interested in, in
what's called the digital humanities, this idea of using

(30:49):
computer technology or AI maybe now for the humanities.
But I think from the perspectiveof the humanities, there's one
thing which is really missing and which is really deficient in
the way how digital humanities are practiced nowadays.
And that's the way that that hassomething to do with, with, with

(31:09):
experience or with meaning. When you look what, what's done
in digital humanities, it's often not about the question,
how is meaning encoded? How is consciousness encoded?
How is subjectivity? I don't know in, in how
subjectivity led to the creationof certain artefacts or
whatever, and how it is, how is it transmitted?

(31:33):
And, and, and those are questions which I would really
expect the humanities, the digital humanities to actually
work on. And that's not the case at the
moment. And so I think there's a there's
there's, there's lots of of, of possibility here, but that
requires that one is actually able to translate some of those

(31:58):
ideas into the AI field. Yeah.
And I think. I think one of the things you
you spoke about in your previouswork was the is to, in order to
sort of understand and apply artificial phenomenology to
cultural artifacts, you suggest that we simulate historical
subjectivities. But I think it's quite an
interesting, yeah, it's quite aninteresting thing in itself.

(32:21):
Yes. So I think, I think one of the
if if you go to a museum now andthen you look at the things in
the museum that hang there. But typically, I mean, we, we,
we, we can kind of think about preserving those, those, those,
those, those things and stuff and knowledge.

(32:41):
But what's ultimately what's often lost in the process is
knowledge. Or is it way of being able to
recapitulate the very process that actually led to the to the
generation of those artefacts? And that's what I mean when,
when, when, when this this this bit about historical

(33:03):
subjectivity. That's exactly what what, what,
what, what related to to these questions of the way how I see
this this culture. A lot of facts that you can
study in the humanities are something of test testimonies of
of of of subjectivities. And if you want to use digital

(33:23):
methods to preserve or produce certain kinds of knowledges or
experiences or exhibitions or whatever, then you should try to
recapitulate this historical forms of subjectivity.
Yep, it's the, there's so much to explore here.

(33:45):
But one, one of the things wouldbe, I mean, if artificial
phenomenology is possible, and Imean we've got these SLPTS,
hopefully someone gives us greatideas.
Then when we experience or witness other sort of
phenomenological interfaces in machines, let's say, how does
this shift our ethical stance ingeneral?

(34:05):
Because many theories of consciousness obviously have
certain layers of where they stop thinking something's
conscious and therefore treat things differently.
In this case, they could be various different interfaces
that are absolutely alien to us.I think it's a good ethical
framework to actually make you abetter person.
Right. I mean, I on the one hand, I, I

(34:26):
would like to say something likeit and it certainly does it, it,
it, it shifts the outlook that way that we we have on these
questions. Or at the moment, as you said,
there's this hierarchy and then there's just couple of things
you typically living things. And then you would say, OK, this
one here maybe and this one heredefinitely.

(34:47):
And this year, probably not. Now when you take a different
view, then you would say, OK, they're just different forms or
manifestations of consciousness.And, and it's not clear how how
that relates to these ethical standards in a sense that I
mean, that could all kinds of things could be, you know, could

(35:07):
be related to, to, to, to a first person perspective or to
consciousness. Whether that's a living thing or
a non living thing doesn't matter.
It's just maybe a part of an interface description or part of
an artefact, but it still doesn't solve this question how
you should proceed and how you should treat and those things.

(35:29):
So for me, for example, when you, when you, when you, when
you talk about various problems that we face, is, is, is
humanity climate problem, for example.
And then it's really an ethical problem for me, it's the
question how should we treat? I'm not saying that the climate
is a living being, but I would say, but I, but I say something
like, well, it's still very similar to a, to an interface

(35:54):
description of something that's going on and, and, and behind
interface, so to speak. And the question is, how should
you, should you, should you think about that?
I mean, when you, one of the things that interfaces do or
allow you to do is, is, is to interact with those things and
the ethical questions, obviouslythen the question how to

(36:15):
interact with those things. But I don't have yet an answer
how you how that shapes how thatshould shape our ethical
policies? It does your relational view of
consciousness reframe human freedom?
So if we're constituted by interfaces, how should we
understand agency and autonomy? Yes, the question of human

(36:36):
freedom or freedom more generally, it's a very
interesting question. As I said somewhere in the
beginning with these two camps of philosophers with, with
respect to freedom, it's all it's, it's also very similar.
And I think you can interpret interface theory in two ways.
And you can either say, Ah, well, it says it's very likely

(37:02):
that that stuff is not predictable.
You know, you have you have a fundamental form of, of non
predictability or probability, but that's not quite the same as
saying you have fundamental notion of freedom that's
happening here. And that's, that's I would say
that's a further leap of faith that you need to, that's

(37:26):
something that you need to post it in addition to say, OK, that
really gives you a relation to freedom.
So I personally think that this free reel question and this
question of consciousness is, isquite strongly related.
But lots of people and maybe even the majority of people in

(37:47):
in doing consciousness science are actually not so much worried
about this close relationship. And I think the interfaith
theory by itself cannot really help you settle this question.
So I'll interrupt you there, Robert.
What do you see as the biggest, let's say, gap, The biggest gap

(38:09):
in current consciousness? Is it metaphysical clarity?
Is it formal rigor or empirical validation?
What are your thoughts on that? So I mean one of the so there
was there was recently this, this, this this paper by Robert
Lawrence Kuhn with with 300 theories of consciousness.
So I think one of the one of theone of the things which is not a

(38:32):
problem is that there are too few theories of consciousness
and there might be not enough good theories.
But then, but it's not a problemthat So whenever, whenever I
read a paper, for example, by someone who proposes yet another
theory of consciousness, and I'malready a bit sceptical and
well, that's not quite what the field is actually seems to be
needing. So that I would say at the

(38:53):
moment the the big gap is to find a a framework which which
could be formal, which would hopefully would be formal, which
is able to integrate various perspectives on consciousness.
You've been working in this field for so many years.
What, what is it about it? About it?
I mean, I know I love this topic.
It's one of my favorite things to chat about, just to discuss

(39:15):
it with friends. What every morning when you wake
up to, to go to work, What, whatgets you going?
What keeps you going? Well, I think, I mean, as you
said, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's it's hell of an
interesting topic. And I think it's the most
interesting scientific topic that we currently have or the
biggest scientific question currently is around.
So I mean, that's that's I thinkthat's that's one obvious thing.

(39:40):
So it's it's not the case that when I wake up in the morning, I
immediately think about consciousness.
That would be that would. I think that would be a bit of
an exaggeration, but but still. But it still must be fun to know
that you, you guys are exploringthe frontiers of consciousness
in a sense there. There was something I wanted to
touch on where it it was the fact that when you take
interface theory of perception, and I know when I was writing my

(40:02):
dissertation many years ago, I was thinking about the fact that
you can use it to also go down the lines of an illusionism
argument. Yes.
So what about it made you go down the other route?
So you could either go down the Illusionist route or the
idealist route. Was it more idealism because you
would grew up fundamentally believing that consciousness was
always fundamental or or some other reason?

(40:23):
Yes. So I, I I think that there are
multiple answers to this question.
The probably the most honest answer would be to say aesthetic
preference or personal preference.
I, I think that illusionism is acan be presented as a very self
consistent theory, though. There, there, there there are

(40:45):
people who who say, ah, illusionism that kind of begs
the question and it's kind of circular reasoning.
And so, and I think that's not, you know, there, of course
there's something to this criticism, but you could still,
I mean, I, I, I, I, I'm pretty sure actually that the very top
illusionists, Frankish, they, they, they, they could tell a

(41:05):
very consistent system story about it.
And, and here you're perfectly right, the interface fear of
perception could actually very well fit into such a story.
So Daniel Dennett in the 90s already, I mean he he had, he
had a very similar metaphor thanthe one that Don is using of

(41:25):
this maybe I don't know whether he said interface or
graphically. Interface I'm.
Not sure user interface. OK, so, so I think it's
perfectly it it, it's perfectly possible to embed it into an
illusionist story. So everything everyone who says,
ah, logically and it doesn't work and you know, interface.

(41:48):
And so that logically leads to the that that, that you have to
kind of get rid of illusionism, that that's probably wrong.
But still, I'm not an illusionist.
And I would say the main reason is just because I have a
preference for something else. Now, different questions.

(42:09):
What, what do you think could bethe best approach to make
progress? So I don't think that any
scientist and then nor any philosopher, they have the
ultimate answer currently. I mean, they're just good
guesses. Some guesses are better than

(42:30):
others, maybe it's a bit more than a guess, but still, I mean
you get the idea And any questions automatically what
would lead to better guesses or what would lead to better system
to better applications based on this and here I think more
consciousness realistic outlook has a much better chance chance

(42:54):
than an. What?
What would make you happier, Robert?
A working artificial phenomenology or mathematical
theory of experience. That's a that's a tough
question. Now I have to think about that.

(43:14):
You only get to choose one. This is something your lab could
discover the next 10 years. So.
You guys could do better. Yeah, I, I guess the, the
artificial phenomenology would have a bigger impact, right.
I mean, having, having, having mathematical theories, I might

(43:35):
be personally a bit more fond ofthat.
But I think the other thing would have a better would have a
higher impact on society, on science more generally.
It's true. the IT, it makes sense.
I mean, when you look at language and you look at
mathematics and how it can explain, it's got so much
explanatory power. It's similar to when people talk
about quantum physics and it's and the fact that it's a, the

(43:55):
absurd effectiveness of it. I've got the exact phrase there,
but it's amazing how mathematicsdoes explain so many things.
So it's sort of intuitively makes sense that at some point
it would explain an experience. Yes, and and and you know, 111
thing with philosophy, which I which I always find a bit was a

(44:17):
bit uneasy about it. It kind of bothers me about
philosophy sometimes. You know, you, you, you could
have this perfectly well balanced and logical and I don't
know, loophole free and whateverphilosophy and no one cares
about it. And if you take whiter, we
already talked about whiter, then I mean, it's, it's it's a
great system. And probably if you criticize
him and he would still be alive,he would have very good answers

(44:39):
to it, but not so much came out of it.
Or if you take, if you take if you take Hagel.
I mean, obviously probably history.
I mean, there were many important things that go back
to, to, to, to his philosophy, but he would be the person to
say, well, any criticism that you had, he, he probably could
answer it. I mean, he was very intelligent.

(45:01):
But still, I, I, I don't see howit informs us, at least nowadays
to make this big think these these big types of progress is
that we would want to, I mean, given this current age and time.
So that's why I think this this first option would be

(45:22):
pragmatically maybe more beneficial.
The other thing would be very nice for me.
I. Think a question I often ask my
guest. Sometimes I start with this
question actually is if you wereto give a philosophical history
of the mind body problem, what story would you tell?
So let's say this, this field needs a philosophical
reorientation of the sciences and and you want to tell the

(45:44):
story, your perspective, how it should be told.
What story would you tell? Oh, that's a very difficult
question. A philosophical history of the
mind. Body problem.
Or a brief synopsis. A brief synopsis.
It's more difficult. So I, I guess I wouldn't, I
wouldn't, I wouldn't want to, you know, the, the, the, the,

(46:06):
the, the way how the story's mostly told, not told nowadays
is, is kind of on the one hand it's, it's, it is on a very
certain time and a very certain place.
You know, you had long times of nothing and then you had the
card basically. And then you had this kind of
strange dualism and his reactions to dualism and so on
and so on. And obviously that's an

(46:27):
important part of the story. But I mean, I think it's just a
part of the story now, the difficulties that the word
consciousness wasn't really used.
I mean, I think John Locke was the you find something, some
something related conterior. But but but, but but but I mean

(46:48):
the modern way, how we how we use consciousness wasn't there.
So even in the dcard actually, Imean, we, we translated as as
this, but but it it it, it, it'sa question for historical
scholarship. What's actually meant there.
So I would if I were to, if I had the the duty of, of, of

(47:11):
telling a philosophical history of, of, of this whole mind body
programming. On the one hand, I think there
there start much earlier with it.
I mean, when, when, when you look at how the ancient Greeks
thought about, about mind, I mean mind body problem, of
course they didn't have the terminology at this specific

(47:31):
problem back then, but they had very different ways of, of, of
thinking about, about the world,about reality.
I mean, you said that you have spirits that can enter your body
and, and into things. It's, it's a very different way
of, of looking at things. And, and, and then the second
thing, not only about going backin time, but also looking at,

(47:53):
at, at different cultures and the different places, how they
thought about it. So I'm, I'm currently working
in, in, in China and, and there are various East Asian cultures
and they have completely different ways of thinking about
these things, whether those are Chinese philosophies or Indian
philosophies. I mean, even the word philosophy
is kind of very specific to whatwe were doing in the West.

(48:17):
And so it's arguably whether that should be called a
philosophy or something else. But but still, I mean, I get
the, I think you get the the idea.
I think it's a much it would would be a much broader story to
tell how exactly I would tell that story.
I would really have to think about it.
And then there's so many gaps ofknowledge that I have here.

(48:39):
But I think the important thing is to be aware of those gaps.
Is good as home good? Yes, but from your experience
working in at, at Shanghai, you're, you're in Shanghai,
right? Yes, yes.
So in your experience, when you look at the way the West
perceives idealism and the way the East perceives it now from
your experience and your lived experience, how's the shift
been? Has there been a complete change

(49:00):
in perception from others or, oror do you find that it's quite
similar at this point? The world's sort of uniting in a
similar sort of thought frame. I mean, so this, this, this
project of or this, this, this idea of using, of, of looking as
idealism as to claim that the fundamental nature of reality is

(49:20):
kind of mental. I would say that's a very
peculiar way how we in the West think about things.
And it also has to do with the kind of historical contingencies
that happens. What is mine, what is matter,
the theory of ideas. And so there, there, there,
there's so many, so many things that that that happened and that

(49:40):
are completely absent if you if you go to a different place.
So that's why I, I think it's, it's, it's a bit difficult to
answer that question specifically when you when you
say, OK, how is idealism perceived here?
Now be that as it may in well certainly that in if if if you

(50:04):
go to the Indian subcontinent, there's much more affinity to
certain idealist like doctrines,whether that's in in in Vedanta
or whether that's in Yogachara Buddhism.
Whereas in, in, in, in the Chinese philosophy, in Chinese
philosophy, specifically in Taoism and then also

(50:24):
Confucianism and new Confucianism, which is a kind of
fusion between Taoism, Confucianism and certain strands
of Buddhism. That's much more, that's much
less explicitly talked about. So a big motive, for example,
in, in Chinese philosophy, whichI found to be a big motive in,

(50:45):
in Chinese philosophy is this idea of not, not, not being able
to talk about the fundamental nature of reality, the Tao that
can be said, it's not the real Tao.
And this idea of, of harmonizingdifferent dialectically opposed
concepts of ways of thinking, It's very prominent here.

(51:05):
And so, for example, you, you already mentioned we, we talked
a little bit about Whitehead previously and Whitehead is, is,
is becoming a big figure here. It's a very interesting
development, especially in China, but I think in Asia more
generally, this whole idea of, of process relational thinking
is, is is very much trendy now. I do.

(51:27):
I see that as a global trend at this point.
The more philosophers I speak to, the more they started
reading White Ted after many years, which is which is
intriguing because I find myselfreading White Ted every now and
then, which is not something I did 10 years ago.
So it's very intriguing how you sort of getting into this
zeitgeist. That's how's your Mandarin doing
at this point. Oh very bad.

(51:50):
It's it's almost non existent. My son is my is is my son.
Mandarin is better than mine andhe learned it cool but but mine
is not very good unfortunately. Robert, if you.
It's the most difficult languagefor us Europeans to learn.
Yeah, no, look, when I was in China, I remember just I spent a
month there, but struggled. I struggled.
It took me, it took me a long time to just leave saying a few

(52:12):
coherent sentences. Yeah, So I have to probably me
if when I try to to talk to, when I try to talk to a Chinese
native speaker, then he or she, they won't understand me.
What are you talking? And it's probably because I
pronounce things so weirdly thatI'm I'm talking complete
nonsense to them. And then I don't know.

(52:36):
That's the only explanation thatI.
Yeah, I think it's such a nuanced language that it's very
easy to slip into nonsense. Yes.
And, and for me, I don't, I don't even hear the differences.
I mean, they have these 4 tones and it's really hard for me to,
I mean, if they're very slowly and of course explain it to me
and then I might get it. But normally if they just talk,

(52:57):
I don't, I don't hear it. And then if I go, well, if I ask
someone now what, what does thisword mean?
And then he says it and then I tried to repeat it and I say it
completely wrongly and then it kind of slips out of my mind.
So that's why it's very hard to learn from me.
Do you think that's a big problem with unconsciousness
studies? Is this linguistic limitation?
The fact that we're already struggling to to communicate

(53:17):
with each other means we'll never be able to fully define
this concept of what is consciousness.
Well, it's certainly, that's certainly a danger, but I
wouldn't, let's say premature prematurely give, give in,
right. I, I mean that that's one of the
reasons why I think mathematics is nice, because then that

(53:38):
problem doesn't really happen. And often in consciousness when
you, when you say you, you're doing consciousness studies or
something like that, or scientific studies of
consciousness or whatever, then people one, one of the typical
reactions is, oh, everyone meanssomething slightly different.
It's not a scientific subject tothink about.
And I think we should try to overcome this kind of prejudice.

(54:01):
Yeah, Robert to to sort of closeup and round up what, what do
you look forward to most in yourfield and what you guys are
doing with your lab and your studies?
Well, so there are, there are a couple of things that I'm really
looking forward. So, I mean, I'm not, although
I'm not a neuroscientist, but itseems to me that if you look at

(54:25):
the neuroscientific study of consciousness, people are
starting to rethink a lot of what they have been doing, which
is due to the fact that they reached a certain point.
You probably have heard about this, this search for the new
correlates of consciousness, andit hasn't really been resolved.
And so there's a lot of uncertainty.
And now people start thinking like, oh, can I really do what I

(54:48):
want to do? So this whole field kind of
reached its limitations, but I don't think that we should draw
the conclusion that it's a useless field.
It, it just starts to enter a new phase, a new more mature
phase. And I'm very excited to see
what's coming out there, even though I'm not the scientist

(55:10):
working in that field itself. But I'm very interested in that
second thing, which I'm kind of excited about and has to do with
AI. There isn't, I would say, at
least it seems to be there is this big rise in in AI
technology and it, it, our everyday lives are more and more

(55:32):
well enriched. It depends a bit on the
perspective whether you say enriched or impoverished, but AI
plays a ever bigger role in our lives.
And so I think there are, there's the possibility that
consciousness research might really get a boost from that.
There's also a danger that AI ruins consciousness research.

(55:53):
So we're at the kind of tipping point it could go, could go both
ways. So I'm I'm, I'm kind of excited
to see, of course, I hope that it's going to the direction
which I find more interesting. I'm not ruining it.
But yeah, and you person and youpersonally, Robert, what are,
what are you working on at the moment that you that you're most
excited about? Oh, what I'm, what I'm

(56:17):
personally working well, I'm most excited about.
Well, so I'm going to Japan in one week, a bit more than a
week. And we have a big consciousness
conference there. I'm very excited about that
because I think that that's so such a great conference.
And we have a, we have a, that'san almost an ultimate program
from my perspective. And we will talk philosophy,

(56:38):
artificial consciousness, mathematics.
We have some quantum stuff going, going on there.
So all the topics that we have. And then I just had section
titles about this conference. It's called models of
consciousness. It's really, really, really
exciting to me what will happen there.
It's a lot of work. So I'm not unhappy when it's

(56:59):
over, but but I'm, I'm, I'm really excited about it.
So that's the really the near future thing that I'm very
excited about and more like outlook in the next over the
next month or so, I hope to really make some progress on
this artificial consciousness SAP test stuff and also on, on,

(57:20):
on on getting some more concretethings about this digital
humanities ideas. So I'm I'm currently involved
with a project with an art scholar to kind of recreate
artificial philosophy, philosophical discourses and
putting them in putting philosophy into discourse and
see what conceptual emergent concepts come out of that.

(57:42):
So that's really very exciting metre.
Yeah, NASA's exciting stuff, Robert D keep up the great work.
It's it's always great to watch and to explore mean reading all
your papers for many years. As I said, it's it's it's long
overdue that we spoke before we close, though, I, I need to
because interface theory of perception is quite, is very

(58:03):
misunderstood by many people. I find that you guys often have
to backtrack before you're able to actually express yourself and
explore yourself openly and, andhave fun with it.
What about it today? Do you feel you haven't said or
you need to clarify you feel should be said before we
actually close off? With respect to the interface
theory of perception, I think what people often miss, it's

(58:28):
often perceived as a very philosophical, but in
philosophically in a bad way, not in a good way, a way of
thinking about things and they're kind of unscientific or
or Contra scientific way of thinking about thinking that.
I think that's not the case. And it's just an extrapolation
based on some very common assumptions that we would do in

(58:51):
scientific modelling. And if you don't like what comes
out of it, then you might need to question those assumptions.
But I think the theory is often dismissed as like an
unscientific, overly theoreticalthing.
And then I think that's that's abit unfair.
We've got a lot of researchers, post docs, students who watch
the show. If anyone's looking to get into

(59:13):
this field, trying to to navigate their way through this
field. Are there any sort of
recommendations you have for them?
Any advice? What would you give to the
average mind, body, solution, listener or viewer?
Because I feel a bit too young for giving advice.
But so I think one of the one ofthe difficulties that that
people will face, it's, it got abit better over the last years,

(59:35):
but but it's still there that consciousness science is not
really institutionalized. There is no department for
consciousness research at any university.
So what for people still have todo is to kind of, you know,
sneak into it a bit, you know, and then, and then if you're

(59:55):
going to neuroscience or philosophy or maybe computer
science in, in, in the coming years, and then kind of try to
secretly build the tunnel of consciousness research.
And that creates, that creates alot of institutional difficulty
for people who actually want to find a job.
Because when you, I mean, when you do science, it's, it's one

(01:00:16):
thing and it's interesting and nice and everything.
But at one point you also, there's also a probe.
Pragmatic aspect to it, you needto have a position, you need to
get a job. And so here it's very difficult
at the moment. I think to, to, to give

(01:00:36):
particular advice here because everyone that I know who is
around my age or maybe a bit older, a bit younger kind of
struggles. So whoever finds that completely
depressing and, and, and, and itshouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't
take it so much on, on, on, on on one's own, you know, fault.

(01:00:59):
Because I, I think it's really, it's really, the environment is
very difficult. So what, what one should do is
to get in contact with kind of like minded researchers, for
example, go to my conference. But there are also other good
occasions and and and and and and and, and good communities to

(01:01:19):
go into. But I think one must not be
afraid or one must not think that it's because one's on
problems that one cannot find a kind of job in this field.
I think it's still a kind of it's the Wild West that makes it
exciting as well. Yeah, I have, Robert.
Thanks. That is a beautiful.

(01:01:39):
Thank you so much for that. I completely agree with you
because that's that's sort of what I did as well.
I mean, I started six years of mid school, two years I've
worked as an internship, one year of community service.
In South Africa, we have to do acompulsory year.
I worked in the military and that's when I did my
dissertation in consciousness because I kind of wanted to do
this for all my life. But the safe route was to be a

(01:02:00):
doctor first just in case, because it is one of those
fields where you're afraid to actually go delve deep into it.
And I grew up in an Indian housewhere you expected to be a
doctor, which is unreasonable, but it helped out quite a bit.
But yeah, so it's it's it's one of the things where I say, OK,
if you get the chance, just do it because it's it's the most
fun subject you can have you to have conversations like this.

(01:02:21):
And yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you. Thank you very much for having
me.

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Is Consciousness Fundamental? Interfaces of Reality & Mathematizing Phenomenology | Robert Prentner

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Is Consciousness Fundamental? Interfaces of Reality & Mathematizing Phenomenology | Robert Prentner