In this episode me and Qualia Research Institute co-founder Andres Gomez Emilsson talk about consciousness and personal identity. We talk about “the slicing problem” (an interesting reductio of computational-functionalism), the forms of consciousness deniers, the binding and boundary problems, a possible solution to the boundary problem via EM field topology, his experimental work on psychedelics, DMT entities, and the self. If you would like early access to all my future podcasts and essays, and to read full podcast transcripts, consider becoming a paid Substack subscriber: https://cxgonzalez.substack.com/subscribe Resources Qualia Research Institute: https://qri.org/ The Slicing Problem paper: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/opphil-2022-0225/html Don’t Forget About the Boundary Problem paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1233119/full Dr. Ogi Ogas podcast: QRI’s perfumes: https://qri.org/scents I Am You book: https://link.amazon/B00c2QUjw The Egg short story: https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg.html Socials Andres’s X: https://x.com/algekalipso Andres’ Substack: My Socials X: http://x.com/cxgonzalez/ Substack: https://substack.com/@cxgonzalez Instagram: https://instagram.com/c.x.gonzalez TikTok: https://tiktok.com/cxgonzalez Spotify: Apple Podcasts: Time stamps 0:00 — Intro and background 4:00 — What is the Hard Problem? 5:32 — 3 classes of qualia deniers 14:06 — The problem with computationalism/functionalism 25:10 — Qualia Formalism 30:39 — The binding and boundary problems 42:23 — Consciousness and the EM field 57:47 — A solution to the boundary problem 1:08:25 — Experimental work on consciousness 1:32:00 — DMT entities 1:41:59 — Is the thalamus is the seat of the soul? 1:47:38 — The self 2:00:00 — The most pleasant perfume in the world? Transcript Christian Gonzalez (00:01:44.881): Andres Gomez-Emilson, thank you for coming on the podcast. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:01:47.643): Thank you for having me here, Christian. Christian Gonzalez (00:01:49.875): So we have a lot to go through and I’m super excited to do so. Christian Gonzalez (00:01:53.161): But before we jump right in, Christian Gonzalez (00:01:54.683): I want to get a little bit of context so that people know what you’re on about, Christian Gonzalez (00:01:57.969): what you do research on, what your special interests are. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:00.939): Yeah, yeah, so I study consciousness. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:03.221): I’ve been very curious about consciousness pretty much all my life. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:07.765): And I did a, my undergraduate was on Symbolic Systems at Stanford, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:13.810): which is essentially the equivalent of a cognitive science degree, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:17.053): which is like psychology, philosophy, computer science, primarily, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:21.156): with a little bit of linguistics in my case. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:25.549): And did a master’s in psychology. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:28.262): I’ve worked at a number of labs and also I was a software engineer in San Francisco Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:32.766): for a number of years. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:34.468): Worked as a data scientist. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:36.550): But then, yeah, decided to essentially start an organization Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:41.494): where I could actually study what I really wanted to, which is consciousness. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:46.639): Not just like, oh, working memory or cognition. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:52.399): You know, social perception, like, things that people, yeah, you know, like, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:56.542): if you say, I study consciousness, they might say, like, oh, you know, like, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:02:59.884): I also study consciousness, but, you know, it might be, like, actually, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:02.826): they’re just, you know, studying something like working memory or something like Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:05.667): that. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:06.888): I was interested in qualia. Like, I was interested in, like, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:09.029): how the brain generates a subjective experience and, you know, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:13.252): what makes an experience feel good or bad and what on earth happens Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:17.494): when you take LSD? Like, how do we make sense of that? Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:21.197): Right. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:22.438): It’s probably impossible to like contextualize what I do also without kind of like Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:27.082): the piece of information having to do with being very passionate Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:31.185): about reducing suffering and like really doing it in a systematic way, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:35.768): kind of like really taking seriously the problem of suffering. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:38.590): So like that also has been like a very, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:40.291): very important kind of like guiding light in how I approach research and my projects Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:44.614): and so on. Christian Gonzalez (00:03:45.518): Okay. So there’s like an ethical component too. Christian Gonzalez (00:03:47.059): So you’re into consciousness, Christian Gonzalez (00:03:49.021): the weird funky stuff that goes on when you do psychedelics, what’s going on there. Christian Gonzalez (00:03:53.005): And then also like, how does this connect to the more ethical questions? Correct. Christian Gonzalez (00:03:57.148): Producing suffering. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:03:58.029): Yes. Christian Gonzalez (00:03:58.369): Cool. All right. So let’s lay some groundwork. Christian Gonzalez (00:03:59.891): Yes. Christian Gonzalez (00:04:01.492): Before we get into like your specific takes on what consciousness is, Christian Gonzalez (00:04:04.375): why don’t we just start very baseline. Christian Gonzalez (00:04:06.857): What’s the hard problem of consciousness? Christian Gonzalez (00:04:07.938): Yeah. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:10.228): Yes. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:11.469): I mean, I believe some people have tried to like, I mean, of course, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:14.410): the hard problem of consciousness was introduced by David Chalmers. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:17.031): And I forget his precise formulation, but like the, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:22.294): and people have tried to formalize precise formulations. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:24.855): But the main idea is that there is an explanatory gap. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:29.497): When you go from function and structure in, let’s say, like the physical world, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:36.571): To subjective experience that, yes, you can very much make the case that, okay, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:41.674): a hundred billion neurons interacting with each other in a nervous system, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:47.458): in a human brain. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:49.018): You can very much imagine a sequence Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:52.821): of explanations that would allow you to go Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:04:56.423): from the sensory input that the human experiences all the way up to their behavior. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:05:03.527): You know, in terms of, you know, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:05:05.229): how information is being passed around in the system, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:05:07.911): is being processed in various ways, how internal representations are made. Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:05:11.835): But at no point like that turns into, oh, Andrés Gómez-Emilsson (00:05:15.578): and there is actually a subject of experience with qualia. Christian Gonzalez (00:05:19.061): Right. Why are the lights on in the first place? Yeah. Christian Gonzalez (00:05:21.643): I feel like in theory, you could have all the functions of a brain being performed, Christian Gonzalez (00:05:26.265): but there’s this extra thing of like the first person experience that seems Christian Gonzalez (00:05:29.547): to… Get full access to Seeing Clearly at cxgonzalez.substack.com/subscribe