A Guide To The Fundamental Mystery Of The Mind - Erik Hoel - #663

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Erik Hoel. He's a research professor at Tufts University, theoretical neuroscientist and an author, known for his work on understanding consciousness and the complexity of the brain. Consciousness and free will are two of the most puzzling aspects of human existence. The question now is whether emerging scientific discoveries and technological advancements can unravel what's going on under the hood of our experience. Expect to learn what the newest cutting edge research on consciousness can teach us, the impact AI will have on our understanding of the self, why it is so difficult to explain our inner thoughts out loud, whether science can prove that we have free will, how to overcome your deterministic fatalism and much more. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Surfshark VPN. Protect your browsing online and get access to the entire world's Netflix library for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month. If you are using the internet without a VPN, you are basically dancing in a muddy field without any shoes on. It is not good for you. If you use a public Wi-Fi network like a library or a cafeteria, the internet admin can see all of the data going back and forth between your computer and the internet. Plus your internet service provider is tracking everything that you look at and then selling your information to companies who will target you with ads on what you browse. Also, it means that you can't access the entire world's Netflix library and you can't use services like HBO Max or Amazon Prime when you're abroad. All of this is fixed by Surfshark VPN. It is available across unlimited devices so it protects and gives you access on your laptop, your iPad, your phone and even your smart TV. Plus, there is a 30-day money back guarantee and an 83% discount with 3 months free. All of that is available if you go to surfshark.deals.modernwisdom. That's surfshark.deals.modernwisdom.
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Given your background, given the work that you've done, how would you describe the current status of consciousness research and the theories around it?

**Erik Hoel** (4:22)
Well, we're at a very interesting time. I believe it was just widely reported that a longstanding bet over whether or not consciousness would be resolved was notoriously not resolved.

**Chris Williamson** (4:34)
Who made the bet?

**Erik Hoel** (4:35)
I believe it was Chalmers and Christoph Koch, if I'm not mistaken. Christoph Koch being a very famous neuroscientist in the field and David Chalmers being a very famous philosopher in the field.

**Chris Williamson** (4:45)
Who was for which?

**Erik Hoel** (4:46)
Oh, Chalmers was, of course, the philosopher was against it and the scientist was for it. And if you think about sort of where we are in the search for a scientific theory of consciousness, you know, it wasn't even on the table that you could do something like that, that you could look for a scientific theory of consciousness. You know, as I talk about in the book, consciousness was very explicitly split off from science early on in the beginning. I mean, particularly by Galileo, who basically said, you know, let's not worry about qualitative aspects of the world. Let's not worry about the redness of red or how a peach tastes, you know, or the sound of a trombone. Let's just focus on the quantitative aspects of the world, which we can describe mathematically.