Acharya Prashant with Neuroscientist Prof. Steve Fleming || University College London (2026)

Acharya Prashant with Neuroscientist Prof. Steve Fleming || University College London (2026)

Author Name:Acharya Prashant

Youtube Channel Url:https://www.youtube.com/@AcharyaPrashant

Youtube Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ9GNAZphjY



Transcript:
(00:00) My name is Megan Peters and it is my pleasure to introduce our speakers this evening. Um I am a a cognitive and a computational neuroscientist here at University College London. Um I also have a strong philosophical streak. So this is a really exciting time for me. Um I work on metacognition, subjective experience and consciousness.
(00:22) So this is very much my home territory and it's going to be difficult for me to not jump into the conversation. Uh but before we fully launch in, I want to say a few words on why we are all here tonight. So uh self-awareness, this is one of the oldest subjects of human inquiry. It's the mind's capacity to take itself as an object, to monitor and question its [music] own thinking.
(00:48) The contemplative and philosophical traditions have of course examined self-awareness [music] for thousands of years. But what has changed more recently is that metacognition or self-referential cognition has also become an experimental [music] empirical science. Over the past couple decades, we've developed ways to measure it, to operationalize it, [music] to study its mechanisms and its source and its function in the brain.
(01:16) And that puts us in an unusual and I think very valuable position. we can now bring that empirical work into direct conversation with traditions [music] that have been thinking about the self for far longer than the past few decades. [snorts] So tonight we hope will be one of those conversations in a meeting of different perspectives rather than a contest between them.
(01:39) So our aim tonight is to begin to see what each can offer the other. So now I'll introduce our two speakers for the evening. Achaya Prashant is a philosopher and the author of acclaimed bestsellers including truth without apology and karma. With an online following of more than 100 million people, he is one of the most followed philosophical voices in the world.
(02:00) And in 2026, he was named to the Watkins list of the most influential living thinkers. His work centers on what he calls the mass-based education of the self. This has delivered to millions of students worldwide through a teaching app and [music] a structured curriculum. His UK tour this summer has taken him to Oxford, Cambridge, and the UK Parliament where he has spoken on clarity, freedom, and climate change [music] in dialogue with thinkers including Professor Jonathan Burch, professors Lars Chitka and at Queen Mary, the
(02:31) psychologist Dr. Melanie Joy, the biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, and the non-dual philosopher Rupert Spir. That journey has now brought him here to UCL. And tonight, Achara Pachchant is here to talk with Professor Steve Fleming. Dr. Fleming is professor of cognitive neuroscience at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and a group leader at the Maxplank [music] UCL Center for Computational Psychiatry.
(02:56) He studied psychology and physiology at Oxford, completed his PhD here at UCL, [music] and did his post-doal work at NYU in New York. His research combines psychopysics, brain imaging, and computational models to understand the mechanisms behind subjective experience and metacognition. This is work recognized by the British Academy WY Prize, a Philip Lever Hume Prize, the BPS Spearman Medal, and most recently the 2025 Royal Society Francis Crick Medal and Lecture.
(03:30) Steve also writes for a general audience. you should check out his 2021 book know thyself which has now been translated into seven languages. [music] So please join me in welcoming them both Steve Achara Prashant over to you. [applause] >> Fantastic. Thank you Megan for a wonderful introduction and lovely to meet you. Same here. bled.
(04:01) >> Where should we start? >> You [laughter] tell me. >> Perhaps we could start with how we think about and define self-nowledge, metacognition, how how we approach these very broad topics. Um, I could maybe say a few words about how we think about it in >> neuroscience. Um, >> and as as Megan mentioned in her introduction, for us, um, in the lab, what we've been interested in is the human capacity to not only think about and navigate the external world, but also to think about ourselves. So the
(04:46) idea that the the mind is not only um trying to figure out what is out there but humans also have this capacity to put ourselves in that mental model of the world and that enables us to know things about our personalities, our behaviors, our skills, our capacities. And we've been trying to probe this in experiments that we can run in in the lab to understand how aspects of um the human brain might support this broad capacity to think about oneself.
(05:26) I think one area that I'm very interested in discussing with you is that doesn't necessarily mean that the knowledge you gain is accurate or useful or it it's something we all do, but perhaps some of us have more self-awareness, more self-nowledge than than others. But it is something we're hoping that we can start to study in the lab and find out um things about um how it is grounded in the biology of of how the brain works.
(05:58) Actually the work that uh neuroscience uh the entire field has been doing and especially your contribution in that has been very useful in the in the direction of self-nowledge specifically in the field of education >> the importance of self-nowledge the relationship between metacognition and self-nowledge or self-awareness. I want to um put it across with with an example.
(06:42) >> So there's a car, there is the engine and uh what the engine is producing is speed. So we could think of the engine and the vehicular speed as one thing which you would call as the as the first order variable. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Then there is the speedometer on the dashboard and uh that is another piece of hardware in the same vehicle.
(07:16) One piece of hardware is the engine producing the speed. Another piece of hardware is the speedometer measuring the speed, >> detecting the speed, which is one part of the hardware reading another part of the hardware or the system >> or the system. >> Mhm. >> And it says uh 90k m or 90 m. Here we have miles. [laughter] So 90 miles per hour.
(07:52) Now this 90 mph can be pretty much independent of the actual speed being produced by the engine. >> Right? So uh this is the second order reading uh which we can denote uh in in in in the field of neuroscience by the word confidence. >> No confidence. Then there is the radar gun outside which is telling us what you'll uh refer to as the ground truth.
(08:20) >> You know what the actual speed of the vehicle is with respect to the ground >> with respect to the ground you know relative to the ground. And then you you look at the speedometer and you look at the radon and if there is uh a constant difference uh we would call it as uh metacognitive bias. If if these two move more or less parily we would call it as metacognitive accuracy.
(08:53) If they move together in one direction, you know, when the speed increases as shown by the radar gun, uh the speedometer also starts showing an increased speed. We would say, okay, this is sensitivity, metacognitive sensitivity. And this is beautiful. This shows that the uh system is capable of reading itself.
(09:19) And the system really doesn't have a choice. What is happening is that one part of the system is simply reading the other part of the system. Generating a report. Generating a report. A report is uh a reading not a choice. Now none of this is really referring to the driver >> the driver of the vehicle.
(09:44) So that's where self-nowledge comes in because the driver has a choice. The driver has an intent unlike the entire piece of hardware and the and the testing apparatus the radar argon each of which is deterministic. They don't have a choice there. If there is a fault with the speedometer, there is a fault.
(10:09) You know, it's got to do with the structure of the brain. Some people simply have uh better brains, so they'll have better metacognitive accuracy. They don't really have a choice there. What self-nowledge deals with is the one holding the choice, the driver. So system reading the system uh would be metacognition and the driver investigating himself and ultimately discovering that there is no driver but that comes later.
(10:38) >> Okay, [laughter] >> that comes later. >> Well, maybe maybe I can respond to No, I think it's a beautiful example. It's one that I should use in my lectures because that was a excellent description of me cognitive bias and sensitivity through the analogy of the the vehicle. Um and I think I would um I think your your example also leads to a lot of interesting questions that are live questions in the neuroscience field at the moment which is that when we started this um set of investigations really the empirical science of metacognition got
(11:18) going in the 1960s and 70s with psychologists who were interested in child development in educational settings. So, children building beliefs about what they know and don't know and using that to guide their own own learning. And then more recently, we've had um the arrival of psychophysical methods to pro to more precisely quantify metacognitive biases and how sensitive someone is to their own performance.
(11:50) Um so often this is in the in the um context of tasks involving judgments about the outside world. So whether a stimulus is a or b, whether it's tilted one way or the other. So some something perceptual usually. And the interesting thing about those contexts is that as the experimentter, we know what they should say. We we designed the stimulus.
(12:15) So we own the ground truth. we we have access to what they should answer >> and then what we sometimes find is that >> um people's confidence estimates can diverge from their performance. So sometimes they might be wrong in their initial judgment about the world and we know they're wrong because we as the experimenters have designed the stimulus and yet they're very confident about being correct.
(12:40) So that would be a failure of metacognitive sensitivity. And you you often see those kind of patterns of behavior when people have um differences or damage to areas particularly of the prefrontal cortex. Exactly. >> Which seems to be playing a role in building this internal model we have of ourselves as we behave. >> But so that's all fine.
(13:04) That's all interest. Well, in a sense, it's a nice paradigm to study, but it gets more difficult when you don't know the ground truth because now, as you say, there is no external perspective on what you should be uh monitoring as quotes right or wrong. And we've been looking at this in um some other experiments where we've looked at not these more perceptual judgments but judgments of what people would like to eat or what what um what um lotteryies they they prefer in a in a in an economic choice scenario.
(13:44) And for that for for those choices there is no right answer. It's completely up to you. I can't tell you whether you should prefer to eat this food or this food. And yet people seem to have different degrees of confidence in those choices that track now not the ground truth because there is no there is no ground truth that we can verify but instead it tracks something about how consistent they are over time.
(14:09) So, it's almost as if it's tracking um what they if they realize they've made an error, if you like, in a in a choice about what to eat, what they're really telling us is if you gave me that choice again in the future, I would choose differently. So, there's something about knowing how you would behave in the future that seems to be important for metacognition.
(14:36) Um, and the the one area of of your analogy where I would perhaps um be divergent on is the notion of the driver because there I think what it nicely picks out is in the in the neuroscience the difference between what we call implicit metacognition so this speedometer that's constantly monitoring the speed of the car and more explicit metacognition which is the conscious knowledge we have of how we're doing.
(15:07) And we would say those are all part of the same hardware. They're all part of the same physical brain. They're just different levels of the system. They're different um uh models that people are building at different levels of the hierarchy, but they're still part of the phys same hardware and they can still be distorted or impaired in various ways.
(15:27) >> So this is this is very interesting. In fact, it it gives me more material to take to my students. So, [laughter] you see, I'll I'll uh take this thing up in two parts. One, the matter of confidence existing with almost zero relation to ground truth, right? where an objective ground truth is either not present or or is indeterminate and yet confidence exists.
(16:04) So that's the first thing. Second, >> whether a driver exists at all. What is this thing >> that uh philosophy especially the the index streams call as the self >> because I'm calling the car as the system >> and driver as the self. So is this distinction even real? So these are the two things.
(16:25) So now another analogy I I'm not sure whether it would be equally befitting but let's try. So think of somebody running on a treadmill. So relative to the ground the speed is zero relative to the ground. But this fellow's internal confidence uh would uh would locate him at 10 kmp 20 kmp something some number some number. And that brings me to the to the fallacy of what we call as introspection >> because the example over here is physical.
(17:02) It needs to be taken to the mental dimension. So we introspect and we think that we know what is happening. Just as in the treadmill example the runner uh his entire physical apparatus feels that distance is being covered but with respect to the ground there is actually no distance being covered. Now, now when it comes to to knowing yourself, h we all want, we all say, you know, I'm reading my mind, I'm changing my mind as if we really know ourselves.
(17:33) This gives us two layers of possible errors or or divergences. One, uh the system isn't reading itself rightly, right? the system is not the accuracy itself is very poor. >> The second the one who claims to own the system has a stake in ignoring the reading or worse still misreading it. Misreading it, right? Because because there is always somebody to whom the system is.
(18:15) That brings us to the question of whether the whether the ego is a product of the system, a part of the system, uh a neural thing or something apart from it. It's a beautiful question >> and philosophy has been grappling with it since just so long. >> Sure. >> You see, on the one hand, ego cannot exist without this system.
(18:43) So you're very right uh on that right no brain no ego no fine I I'll expand that no body no ego right brain is simply a part of the body no body no ego nobody nobody to claim I am the body or mine is the body nobody to make that claim but then at the same time the ego cannot be a product of the system because the ego does not uh does not uh say uh uh I'm located at this place in the system or that I am connected to this part of the system.
(19:19) Ego is the claim the system is mine. Now that's not a claim that the system is making. The claimment might be a fraudster. [laughter] We can examine the claimment and come to the conclusion that the driver actually does not exist. >> Right? It's a self-driven car. We may come to the that but there is a feeling nevertheless.
(19:39) There is a feeling nevertheless. I own this body. I own this body. These are my thoughts. These are my thoughts. So there is this this uh this thing uh that tells stories >> that tell stories. And why does uh Indian philosophy uh want to study that thing as separated from the system? The answer is very clear. The answer is experiential ontological.
(20:15) The answer is that the brain does not suffer. There is no cception. There is pain. There is suffering. Systems can experience noception. Body can experience pain. But there is somebody else who is suffering all the time. who wakes up at 3:00 a.m. and says, "I am lonely." There is somebody who is saying, "I do not know what I want, but for sure there is something that I want terribly.
(20:47) I am frustrated, but I do not know the cause. Oh, I'm so lonely. Oh, I uh memories of the past haunt me. Oh, what am I to do in the future? What do I make of myself? Where did I come from? What is the purpose of life?" This is the one that suffers. And this is the one that cannot be located anywhere in the body.
(21:08) So that's the reason this one must be studied separately. And the study of this one, the suffering one is called the field of self-nowledge. Self-nowledge as different from knowledge of the system. As different from knowledge of the brain, knowledge of the neurons, knowledge of particular parts of the brain.
(21:29) So that would that's a that's a beautiful and a very very important field to study because that tells us so many things that are deterministic but are claimed by the ego as choices. >> So that's the very importance of the whole field of neuroscience and all and so many other things that science tells us.
(21:48) We come to know where the ego does not have a choice because those things are deterministic. we come to know that that uh that uh certain thoughts that are arising you know they are arising probably because there was something that you ate so it's not a choice you made it was something that you just swallowed but you are saying okay I am thinking this way h so it helps us negate the driver when we come to see what is it that the system is doing by itself including making errors the system is capable of making great errors and that's what you have fully studied
(22:23) but nevertheless the system remains separate. The system can experience pain but psychological suffering there the sufferer is somebody else. We investigate that in the in the field of self-nowledge and that sufferer says no no no I'm not the body I'm not the body I'm the owner of the body. That sufferer you know sir sometimes it blows the body up.
(22:48) It says I hold certain ideologies for which I must enter an enemy camp and detonate myself. You know it can even destroy the body. Now the body is not going to do that to itself on its own. No system is is built to be suicidal, right? Uh we know this. We know injured cells destroy themselves, but but then you could have a healthy young man, right? Entering entering a crowded civilian space and blowing himself up.
(23:18) Now, this cannot be explained by the body itself. So there is somebody else however false it is when when ultimately tested. But this one is self-referential and self-certifying. It claims existence. Not only does it claim existence, it claims ownership over everything that the system does. It will say my thought, it will say I am the certifier.
(23:43) So that's what is studied differently. I think it's very interesting and I very much um find the uh analogy of the self-driving car and the notion of how the driver may in some sense be illusory >> delusion. I think though one um area I'm interested in pushing on is the extent to which the brain and the mind as supported by the brain is is able to hold very compelling beliefs that may necess nevertheless be be false.
(24:25) And those could be so compelling that they can drive people to actions um that may diverge completely from what is good for them and and the survival of the body and as you say the the the general imperative that evolution is as has kind of um built into us as biological agents. But those beliefs that we that the brain is capable of building can be so compelling that people lack insight into the fact they maybe are are harmful.
(24:56) And we see this in clinical conditions such as psychosis where people can have very vivid and and um compelling hallucinations that we can even study at the level of sensory representations in the brain that people can uh believe so strongly they are hearing voices and the voices are not really there and yet their audiary cortex is is active in ways that compel them to believe that those voices are real.
(25:26) So I guess my I I think I agree largely with what um your your perspective on on the self here. Um, and it it chimes with a um a philosophy that I've been fond of for many years, which is Daniel Dennett's notion of the user illusion and the idea that we we are um we have a sense that there is somewhere that it all comes together what Denn called the Carteesian theater that we are somehow viewing what our brains are doing and processing this information and through the through the years going back to Daycart and ever since since him physiology have tried to find that place
(26:12) and we we haven't found it there is no place where it all comes together so I think we're very much agreed on that I think where perhaps I would um diverge if I'm understanding you correctly is that the belief that we have this narrative self is itself self grounded in the way the brain is working.
(26:35) It is able to form these compelling beliefs. And that's what in consciousness research people are increasingly referring to is illusionism. The idea that the notion we have some kind of coherent conscious self is a denettian user illusion. But that doesn't mean it's floating free of how the brain is working. It means it's part of the model that the brain is supporting.
(26:58) Please see, you could have two individuals with perfectly healthy brains >> and no scientific scan will ever be able to reveal which of these hold toxic beliefs unless the hard wiring itself has changed. In fact, in fact, whether or not the belief is toxic is again is again dependent on who is conducting the test.
(27:32) >> Well, that that that seems to be the [laughter] problem there. So, I would I think today I agree that we can't scan the human brain and find out what people are believing >> that's not possible. But in principle, if you were able to map things in high enough um fidelity and know what certain you you would wouldn't be able to notice certain, but you would be able to raise your confidence that someone is perceiving or believing a certain aspect of content.
(28:07) So, and these experiments have been done. We can now use decoding and machine learning techniques to read out patterns of brain activity that correspond to people seeing things even when they're not really there or hearing things even when they're not really there. So, >> but I I think the the word that's doing a lot of work for you there is toxic and that does seem to depend on >> any belief.
(28:27) >> Any belief, any belief. Okay. >> Any any story, any narrative. >> Yeah. I I'm not so sure. I think maybe [clears throat] you could [laughter] >> maybe you could >> you see okay let's let's make it even more refined okay >> okay okay >> they don't have the belief yet >> m >> we sit here right as storytellers and and and there's this person here and this person here and this person this person each of them with perfectly healthy brains >> right it would be impossible for can to predict how many among them and which ones
(29:10) exactly are going to buy our stories. >> It will be very difficult, >> right? And even if it is determined, >> there would be a certain confidence level which is probabilistic. >> Mhm. >> Just probabilistic. Yet it is going to happen that somebody there is going to make a choice. choice right irrespective of the brain the brain is alike there is nothing in the brain suggesting that this story is more acceptable you cannot map the structure of the brain to what is going to happen to the story who is it there who is buying into
(29:50) the story so so that's the one you know and and and and I do not mean to posit an agency because the moment I do that that agency will be situated within the system >> and therefore would be a part of the system. I'm not referring to a part of the system. I'm simply referring to now this would become more interesting and and and and you you will catch this.
(30:14) I'm referring to a computational error in the system. The ego as an error in the system which means it cannot exist. You know error by definition is something that is that is imagined but is not there. 2 + 2 equals 5. Now this kind of a thing doesn't exist but it can be believed in. No.
(30:42) And I and I enjoy seeing and I want want you to test that because 2 + 2 equals to 5 cannot uh is not balanced. So the ego puts itself on the left hand side and says now it is balanced. I which is ego I amness + 2 + 2 equals 5. Now the equation stands balanced. So so there is somebody who is making a choice for the system.
(31:08) Obviously the system is doing a lot of stuff for itself. The lungs are deciding that between the O2 molecule and the CO2 molecule they will take in the O2 molecule and reject the CO2 molecule. Yes, the system is making a lot of choices for itself. But apart from the system there is also this this this this drunkard this this hallucination this delusion within h that claims to be the maker of choice and the sufferer also the sufferer also the system experiences pain the sufferer builds a story around the pain so that's the one that uh that uh philosophy
(31:52) wants to go into not just as intellectual curiosity but because the the because the intent is to help the sufferer. you know the sufferer is there and and you know you think the Buddha looking at the old man the the dying man the diseased man and the Buddha is saying why the hell is everybody suffering and it's from there that philosophy begins and uh some of what uh we are discussing right now actually comes uh from the tradition of the Buddha the Madhamic philosophy the shunad Nagarjun.
(32:36) So, so, so this one, this one. And >> so, so I I think it's interesting the way you describe choice and agency and this this really how we think about free will and and um our impression as psychological beings of how we go about our daily lives. And to what extent are we in in control? And I think as you say there are so many things that are we believe we are in control over or we we we think we have agency over whereas actually these a lot of it is being guided by the situation or the the bodily response and
(33:19) and so on. Um and I think that where again we may be um occupying really interestingly overlapping territory. coming at it from obviously different perspectives but really overlapping territory is this notion that regardless of whether things are deterministic or probabilistic at the level of neurons and and behavior there is something about the we construct these narratives about ourselves and that's where a lot of the psychological distress comes from.
(34:02) we we we build stories about ourselves and they are sometimes very negative or um distressing as well. Um and I think what's interesting is that those narratives themselves seem to have a place in in how the brain supports the mind. So, so I don't think we know how I think narrative and storytelling and how that works in in terms of how we respond to stories and how we produce stories I think is a very untapped area of psychology and neuroscience.
(34:42) It's a fascinating area. But I think we do have some sense that they however it works, it's still grounded in neurobiology. And one example of this comes from these beautiful experiments of patients with um surgical disconnection of the corpus colosum. So the two hemispheres have been disconnected and this was done to attempt to cure intractable epilepsy.
(35:06) So these were experiments that were um done by Ro well well the surgery was done by the clinicians and then Roger Sperry and Michael Gazaniger and Joe Leoo back in the 60s and 70s studied um a series of these patients and showed that if you care if you set up an experiment so that a stimulus is flashed to one of the two hemispheres that have now been disconnected and the way you can do that is because the input from the eyes crosses over and goes into the two different hemispheres largely largely separately or the input from the
(35:42) two two halves of visual space. And what they showed was that if you flashed a stimulus that went into and you arranged it so that that information from the stimulus went into the right hemisphere of the brain, the person would still be able to um use that object for some reason. So they would be able to um draw it or they would be able to um act upon it, but they would be unable to say what it was because the information hadn't got into the left hemisphere, which typically supports language.
(36:16) >> But what was fascinating about those experiments is not just that it showed that you could do things with disconnected hemispheres of the brain, but that the left hemisphere would often make up a story >> about why the right hemisphere had done what it's done. And these were two hemispheres in the head of the same person.
(36:35) So I think it shows that however that narrative is being built, it's still being grounded in how the brain is working. >> How the brain is working. >> Yeah. >> But but also please think of uh because we are talking about the brain and the mind. >> Yes. >> Please think again of a very healthy brain. with a with a great uh metacognitive accuracy as well.
(37:06) Accuracy and sensitivity both and still being a very accurate narcissist. This fellow knows that not only can he uh can he guess but his guesses more often than not land rightly. This fellow also knows that even when without any reasoning he has this gut feel or intuition, more often than not it lands rightly. He he his his brain knows itself.
(37:44) His brain knows itself. And yet he could be a narcissist >> because the difference between brain and mind is determined by who is sitting at the center of the mind calling the mind its own. You see to the ego to the ego everything is an object. The brain is an object to the ego. The all the abilities of the brain two are an object to the ego.
(38:19) The body calls this thing as my body. The ego the ego calls this as my body. The ego will say this is my book. Uh that is my family. Uh that is that is my nation. Now this kind of a thing cannot come obviously from a simple biological system. There is somebody who is saying you know that is my ideology that is my political belief that is my religion.
(38:41) The biological system has nothing to do with all that. It's an evolutionary product. So the mind has somebody at its center that determines what to do with even the output of the brain. Output of the brain. You could have a person with very ordinary uh metacognitive accuracy but still quite kind, quite helpful.
(39:10) You know, he he does not uh he he does not uh read the situations well. He is often misled. He he he makes a fool of himself in in front of the room sometimes. But he is still kind because the one at the center of the mind has intention in a different direction in the direction of self- dissolution in the direction of kindness and all that.
(39:38) So, so brain and mind have a third variable in between called the ego. Brain is a selfsufficient system, a product of evolution as we know. But when it comes to the mind, something else comes into the picture. The ego which says my brain I will use it in this direction. My mind for example please think of memories.
(40:06) Memories so much must have happened to me to you to to everyone in the audience since the morning. We do not remember everything while while while just so much would have streamed into into the brain into the consciousness but only some part is remembered. Why is only some part remembered? Who is making that decision to keep something and delete something and keep only that preferably which matches with the identity statement of the ego.
(40:46) So even as we speak they are not registering everything and it is a choice being exercised by someone. The brain is not exercising that choice. The brain is a neutral machine. Uh memory too is an object to the ego and the ego is deciding what to keep in the memory and what to delete it. We we keep certain instances in the memory even if they happened 20 years back and there were things that happened just 2 hours back and we don't keep them in the memory and the memory is not making that decision on its own.
(41:18) Somebody else is making that decision and somebody else is self-preservatory. So that decision is being made for the sake of egoic preservation. In fact, that decision if we see has nothing to do with the welfare of even the physical system. I might choose to remember something that might cause this physical system some harm. We do that.
(41:44) Each one of us do that. So many of our uh diseases for example uh are lifestyle diseases. So the so so the ego is making a choice which is hurting even the body. We we are overeating. Now this overeating is not being decided by the uh physical system in its own interest. The physical system would say only this much and only of that particular kind.
(42:09) But there is somebody who is deciding to eat even if it hurts the body. So so that one has to be has to be studied and and that one is at the center of the of the mind. The mind obviously cannot be dissociated from the brain but at the same time the brain and mind mapping must include this third one because this third one can distort everything. It's a bond distorter.
(42:40) I think memory is a very good example of how we should how we can try to think about control and whether there is an active choice in what we store for instance. Um, and I think I I I agree that the the process of, you know, what we take in from our environments and what we um what ends up being stored is not um a a conscious choice in the way that we normally think about it. Instead there
(43:25) is some rationale to it. There is some something else. >> Something else. But but the the the what that something else could be I think is something very high level in the system in in the the way the brain and mind interact that people who work in memory neuroscience refer to this idea of a schema.
(43:57) So you have kind of a general um mental model of how the world is working and of who you are as a person and your behavioral tendencies and skills and abilities and your name and and your history and and so on. And that that is a you that's something we can access that probably also supports this notion of narrative about our lives.
(44:21) Um and yet if you um have certain patterns of brain damage often to areas of the medial prefrontal cortex, you can disrupt those >> high level mental models of ourselves. We people can genuinely lose the knowledge of who they are. >> Um and so I think that shows that it is grounded in the brain in some way that we don't fully understand.
(44:48) it is >> um and I think it's maybe I can ask you a question here. So what I often struggle with in a lot of our work in in metacognition is trying in a sense to do what Megan described in the introduction which is to d try and devise a more computational account. So rather than having um a few steps where uh information is processed from the senses and and it's it's uh you used to control our behavior in certain ways to allow us to navigate the environment.
(45:28) We want to understand the intervening processes inside our heads that enable that. And ultimately to try and do that in a way where positing any third thing, any intervening aspect is not no longer necessary because we have a full story of how the system is operating which would include the narrative.
(45:50) It would include the schema. It would include things that people call that that people refer to as the self. Even if the self as a object doesn't actually uh exist um that research that computation would be beautiful and what helps is that this third entity is not even needed in that. No, >> because the system is actually factually factually independent of that that I thing that I amness it is actually independent >> what is however seen experienced and I'm coming from empirical evidence right not
(46:35) not theory seeing how I operate how each one of us operates this one comes later on to collect the credit this hardly has a role in how the system actually operates. >> But later on it comes to say the system is mine and I did it >> and I am there to to collect therefore the paycheck or pay the bill whatever >> whatever. So I am the one owning it all.
(47:06) It doesn't truly own the system is independent. Therefore the system can be independently studied as well. M >> we do not need to posit the ego. >> See the ego is the one that collects the results of all your studies. [laughter] >> It does not need to be a part of your studies. If it is a part of your studies, it will distort the studies.
(47:28) >> But whatever you come up with, the ego will come and steal credit for it. [laughter] That's the ego. >> So I Yes. I mean, maybe that's where we'll end up. I I would I I would be optimistic that we could try and explain that last part too, but maybe that's too uh far down the chain. >> You can explain that and the ego will say I am the explainer.
(47:49) [laughter] >> So I I realized I didn't actually ask you the question that I was going to ask, but the the question I wanted to ask you is um so maybe I'll take one step back. Uh the the work that we're doing in on metacognition we're hoping will have some practical benefit because it will enable people working in education and who are trying to understand the how to help people with uh neurological and psychiatric conditions to better understand what to do when metacognition is distorted when it when it is arai when the speedometer is not lining up
(48:29) with the car's speed and we see that a lot in >> in everywhere >> neurological [clears throat] in everywhere particularly in certain neurological conditions um in dementia people will believe their memory is still not all the time but often they will believe their memory is still fine when actually it is um it is distorted in various ways and that can lead to problems with compensating and and uh seeking help for seeking treatment and so on and I grapple with this notion that should we try and correct that as
(49:05) as scientists as um as uh clinicians should because there seems to be a value sometimes in not having accurate >> okay >> metacognition >> okay okay >> and I [laughter] do you understand where I'm going to yes yes yes >> because in the case say of dementia I get it yes yeah yes yeah [laughter] I get it I get it. I pass through it.
(49:31) I have to make that decision many a times. See, first of all, the work that you are doing, it would be of benefit to my field. I'll give you an example how so many things because I am I'm I I'm work towards mass education of the self. The self. And when I say self, I don't mean the system. >> I mean the ego, the I amness. Mhm.
(49:59) >> So many things that this self claims as its own doing or its possessions are actually systemic and you are proving that. So for example there is a phase lag between the action and the consciousness of it and that comes not as an egoic decision but as a structural constraint >> as a systemic thing.
(50:30) Now this is great in demonstrating to people that your thoughts are not your thoughts. You just come later and say okay okay okay this is mine this is mine. It might be hormonal it might be situational it might be conditional whatever whatever. So, so don't be so identified with your thoughts. This is the way in which your work helps people like me.
(50:50) Now, the the next thing are there situations in which uh in which it is better not to have metacognition. Anesthesia. Anesthesia. It's great to have in surgery. It's very bad to be anesthesized in life. You get this? >> Yes. >> I don't want you to pass through unnecessary pain. So I would cut off your metaccognition when I am performing a surgery on you.
(51:26) That pain would be useless. So only in that that condition a condition of that kind of specificity that I would advise that fine do not do not help them do not treat them. uh this is a situation that asks for mercy rather than compassion. But then if people say we do not want to look at ourselves because that proves psychologically distressful then I would not agree. Mhm.
(51:55) >> If there is is somebody on the surgeon's table, I would say fine, numb him down. Let him not let him not experience anything about himself for that brief period, for that specific task. But then this can very easily become an egoic excuse for sleepwalking through life. And that's something it should not be allowed to become.
(52:22) >> Very interesting. I yeah I mean I think these are we're now straying into the moral territory which is when is it a good thing or not a good thing to >> not not just moral in fact very empirical please see >> pain comes for a purpose even even biologically also psychologically pain is a signal we all know that we know that pain arrives so that remedial action can be taken that's the reason physical signals uh physical systems generate that signal that's also the reason the psychological system generates that signal. If pain is
(53:01) subdued for a while very consciously deliberately for a reason, we can understand that because it would serve no purpose. You keep the patient conscious on the surgeon's table and the surgery can't be performed. Also, it would be it would be needless cruelty. But then there is a pain that comes when you look into the mirror.
(53:27) When the ego looks into the mirror and sees how ugly it is and what it truly has been doing, then two a pain arises. Now this pain is something that should remain. We should we should not suppress this pain otherwise uh there there's uh going to be a a great problem. So so it's not just just moral it is functional.
(53:50) It's functional. If suppose in in our body uh a certain condition arises and and pain can no longer be experienced, the body would collapse sooner than later. >> Right? Same thing for the psychological self. It is very important that pain is experienced when pain must be experienced for the sake of betterment of the body or the psyche.
(54:17) So, so, so in that sense, >> so building on that, um, another thing we grapple with a lot in trying to build out metacognition as a science because it's quite early early days really. As Megan said in her introduction, there's been thousands of years of philosophical inquiry into self-nowledge and and aspects of what we've been talking about as thinking about ourselves.
(54:50) But we've only really been studying this in a um laboratory or neuroscientific context very recently, really decades um at most. And I think the field as a whole is still trying to grapple with these ideas of it goes back to what we were talking about earlier of verification of um if there in simple experiments we can define a ground truth >> right >> we know we can and a lot of the dayto-day work in the field is building statistical models of people's metacognitive judgments about their own performance and ability and seeing how those line up with the their actual
(55:37) performance which you can only quantify because you have a ground truth and I think we recognize in the field that that's limiting that's not we want to be broader than that we want to be able to think about when metacognition is working well or poorly beyond the boundaries of the psychophysicist's laboratory And to do that we need some way of some framework for thinking about verification.
(56:11) And one one framework that has I think proved promising and I'd be very interested in your response to this is the notion that some things are uh relative to our social group that the the the way we develop metacognition as children >> is because our parents and teachers help us figure out when certain situations are one way rather than another.
(56:40) So, a classic case would be um a a child who falls over and you can see them, they're just about to cry, but then the parent comes in and says, "No, no, you're not you're not hurt. You're fine." And then somehow that stops them from crying. There's there's like a almost like they're using their parent as their external metacognition to realize that their internal state might not be quite as bad as they thought it was.
(57:06) Um and so in some sense then if that's how we build it if that's how we build this capacity to think about ourselves then in some sense verification depends then on the social group on the parents on the teacher >> you can't do it yourself [laughter] >> it's so fascinating we are climbing the same hill from two two little different sides it's it's lovely you see I'll start uh from a different point and then you'll see I'm coming to where where you are standing.
(57:41) >> We say the ego is self- refferential because only the ego can say that I exist. No kind no test no cats can nothing can establish the establishment of the ego as a gland as a tissue or even as a molecule in the system. But the ego still says I am, I am, I am. It is self- referential. And uh in metacognition, one part of the system is designed to look at the other part of the system.
(58:15) When it comes to self-observation, self-nowledge, right? as we use it in in in uh in spirituality or in wisdom literature in philosophy when it comes to self-nowledge only the ego can look at itself. The system is designed to look at itself even if with imprecision but the system is still designed to look at itself.
(58:37) The speedometer is designed to to measure the speed but the ego is not even designed to look at itself. Right? looking at itself is a difficult choice it has to make. That's what I call as honesty. Now this is not accuracy. This is honesty. >> Accuracy is structural. I can I can I can build a very accurate system.
(59:02) But honesty is always a choice, a matter of intent. It cannot be structural. It cannot be the output of a certain architecture. M hm. So the ego we say as teachers must honestly look at itself. Great teaching [laughter] doesn't work because the ego is not designed to honestly look at itself. The ego is designed to preserve itself.
(59:32) Right? It says self-preservation is the first priority. And this is coming from observation. I cannot have uh a falsifiable proof for it. But then if you look at people and how the way they operate without exception throughout the world, this is what you observe. So the ego is not designed for honesty, right? It cannot report accurately on itself.
(59:58) But but if you have a beautiful brain, it can probably report accurately on itself more or less more or less more accurately than other brains. But the ego ego is rarely demonstrate honesty though teachers keep inspiring you know please please please be honest please be honest why can't you look at yourself in an unbiased and neutral and objective way but we are incapable of that we are biased we are prejudiced we are identified that's when that thing comes in that you just mentioned an external objective >> yes >> vantage point >> now one thing is the system is biased.
(1:00:36) Therefore, it cannot be fully accurate. The system is not designed to be fully accurate. And the ego is not designed to be fully honest. [laughter] System cannot be accurate. Ego cannot be honest. What does that mean for the organism? It means suffering. It means suffering. System cannot be accurate. Ego cannot be honest.
(1:00:57) And life is ego plus the system. So that is a lot of suffering. Now this is where you require an objective verifier to hold the mirror. Just like the the radar gun in the example we started off with. You know somebody is standing there and and and in a special condition of neutrality >> in a position that only he can be because you see the the when it comes to the system or the ego the mover and the seer are one.
(1:01:30) The one one who is acting the actor and the one who supposed to look at the action they are one. So there is conflict of interest [laughter] but the one who is situated there can be a little more neutral. So we say you require great company. You talking of parenting >> huh? >> So we require great company. That's where great friends come in.
(1:01:53) That's where uh the the great books come in. And that's where the teacher as a mirror steps in. The teacher not as a preacher but as a mirror. A mirror that you can look into so that you learn about yourself very accurately. Yes. So I fully agree with you. The external observer is always needed. While I must uh qualify this statement, the external observer cannot be a substitute to inner honesty because the external observer after all is external.
(1:02:32) He will provide certain inputs and if you're not honest then you will not take those inputs. >> You might smash the mirror itself or the mirror is is is reflecting such an ugly face. This mirror is biased. Let me throw away the mirror. So honesty is needed. Obviously if you have a if you have a beautifully accurate brain nothing like it but you but you don't have a choice in that right depends on so many conditions parents genes so so much so so much so if that is there wonderful along with that you need honesty and on top of honesty you need that external
(1:03:06) help >> and even that external help is a choice because the mirror might be available and you might decide to turn away from it >> but nevertheless uh you cannot say I will do it on my own that is that is a lot of uh lot of self delusion a lot of selfdeception and uh that's the reason I I advise myself and people around me to not to be too confident of themselves skepticism is a great policy when it comes to the self >> always you know I'll I'll narrate it to you it's in Hindi and then I'll translate Right? That means
(1:03:53) you could be pardoned for trusting anybody but never trust yourself. [laughter] Anybody could be reliable but when it comes to you, you are not reliable. Which basically means keep testing, keep testing and that testing requires honesty and also an external verifier. that external verifier is is the friend, the teacher, the guide, the mirror, the scripture and and great books and libraries and and everything everything you have to have the intent to use everything to come to the truth.
(1:04:28) >> I I completely agree with that [laughter] and I feel like we could go on for a long time but I think we are moving into the Q&A phase. So Megan is going to I think come back and manage that for us. >> Wonderful. Thank you. We were going to let you go for just a couple more minutes [laughter] because it was so engaging.
(1:04:53) Um but this uh I'm I'm truly um amazed at how much convergence I heard throughout uh the very different perspectives and the very different backgrounds. Like there were so many cases where I felt like initially as that part of the conversation started you were on such different pages and yet through the dialogue it came to be that those were maybe not so different perspectives after all.
(1:05:17) We're using very different language to talk about some of the similar concepts. There definitely were some cases where divergence remains but I really enjoyed the conversation. I felt like I learned a lot. So, I hope that everyone feels similarly to the way that I feel. So, now I think we can open the floor to questions. Um, wow. Okay.
(1:05:36) Right there in the back. And I'm going to try to keep track. Keep keep those hands up and we'll try to keep like this and we'll try to keep track. Yes. >> I'm really interested by the correlation between the heart and the brain. And when the heart's switched on, the ego, the my my kind of disappears a little bit for me.
(1:05:55) And I just wondered if that's something that you or anyone else studies. >> So it has very much been a a recent focus I would say in cognitive neuroscience has been this influence that the body is having on quite high level sensory cognitive emotional processing that's happening in the brain. So the body and the brain are intimately linked particularly via the aference coming up from the heart, the lungs, the stomach.
(1:06:29) Um and there's been some lovely work um from my colleague at the ICN Sarah Sarah Garinkle has shown that when you present stimula relative to the phase the different phases of the heartbeat you can see this um pushpull relationship where when the heart brain channel is active you seem to lose some sensory contact with the outside world and then that resumes um when the heartbrain channel is quieter.
(1:06:56) So the the experiments are very much I think backing up your intuition that there is is this uh constant and intimate link between the brain and the body. >> Hi. Yes, thank you. Very interesting discussion. So um as a neuroscientist I'm obviously biased in my belief that the mind cannot be explained without the brain and obviously there's a lot of evidence where lesions in the brain or also pharmacological experiments causally change um kind of processes of the mind and then reversibly as well um subjective experiences functionally
(1:07:29) altering activation in the brain. So I'm just wondering what kind of experiment philosophers could come up with in collaboration perhaps with neuroscientists that would kind of be able to separate those two and related to that maybe a separate question but whether you think um the question of consciousness um in artificial agents where there's no physical system um how that would maybe help with that.
(1:07:51) >> When you talk of experiments you want something objective and that has been the beauty of science. Once it is objective then it is verifiable, falsifiable, repeatable. You know the problem is when the experiment is about the subject as well then how can you make it objective because the subject is the receiver of the outputs of all experiments.
(1:08:23) For example, I found it interesting the the language of the last questioner when he said the ego seems to disappear or subside for me. Even the disappearance of the ego is for someone. The ego subside for me and that is the ego. So how has the ego subsided? If there still stands somebody to receive the news that the ego is gone, then it is the ego receiving the news that the ego is gone.
(1:08:57) It is like the ego issuing itself a death certificate. So please understand you cannot have objective experiments here but you must have objective experiments, great experiments, very beneficial experiments in science, right? How to make it verifiable? Then how to make it falsifiable? Your life is the only place where it can be seen and falsified because the ultimate purpose is freedom from suffering.
(1:09:29) If you find yourself less afraid, if you find yourself less lonely, less insecure, then the experiment succeeding. That's it. Also the distinction this thing between can that when you set certain parts of the brain develop a reason and then certain things happen there is always someone who would say certain things have happened to those certain things those certain things have happened to me the ego still remains even in the moment of death somebody remains to say I am dying I am dying that's the one the ultimate subject of
(1:10:07) all objects The ultimate collector of all knowledge, the receiver of all news, the one the one to whom everything is happening. When you say something is, please see is not everything to somebody. When you say something is a fact, when you say something is a truth or somebody thing is false or something is imaginary, it is always to somebody.
(1:10:33) That somebody is what we define as the ego. To whom is this? To whom is death? The body does not cry because it is dying. Who is who is the one who is so afraid of death? Even when death is is nowhere close, nowhere around. We are young people and yet all kinds of insecurities haunt us, taunt us.
(1:10:59) Who is the one suffering there? That one. That one is is the is the is the one we are looking to get into. But you cannot objectively get into that one because the moment you turn the ego into an object, the ego is secured. The ego is secured. Now what the ego is reading is a book called ego. [laughter] [gasps] The moment you turn the ego into an object that you are scientifically experimenting with.
(1:11:28) Now the ego is reading a book. This is a book titled ego. Now this is no self-observation. you have turned yourself into a a safe object that you can experiment with and still remain secured. Right? So this question you must always ask to whom is all this? Who is now saying oh my brain is damaged therefore I cannot feel or I am paralyzed or I am I'm experiencing this kind of cognitive disorder.
(1:11:55) Who is the one saying all that? Who is the one saying I'm dumb? Who is the one saying, "Oh, even though I keep failing in my choices, but I'm still smart." Who is the one saying that? That's the one we are interested in for the simple reason that that's the one who suffers. >> You had a question about AI as well.
(1:12:22) I was wondering when AI was going to come onto the scene. Perhaps for us as neuroscientists if it would convince us that actually in fact if we were to detect consciousness in artificial systems that perhaps um these processes don't require the brain. >> I mean I I maybe say two things about this.
(1:12:45) One is that um I think the success of functionalism in explaining how various psychological processes work and how they're grounded in certain systematic um functions of the brain. I would still place my bets on functionalism as being the right way of thinking about AI systems. um that if they're implementing the right kinds of functions then they can um be it would be odd to not ascribe them certain psychological capacities.
(1:13:16) I think we're already there with that. Now the question then comes well do they are they just um performing these behaviors? Are they just acting this out? Um even if the cognition and and apparent thought behind it seems very rich. Are they is it a surface level mimic of our conscious experience that goes along with that kind of psychological um set of capacities? I think the the reason the that's a very difficult question is that we don't know enough yet about how the various functions of the brain are supporting conscious
(1:13:57) versus say unconscious states in in in the human. But I also think it just puts pressure on the very concept of consciousness that we have in both the neurosciences and a lot of philosophy of mind that as soon as we start asking questions about well it's doing all the functionality but is there someone really home I think we've lost the focus on what we were originally trying to explain because that property then which often people refer to as the hard problem or phenomenal consciousness I don't think that exists as something
(1:14:31) that we could ever grasp scientifically. I think that is akin to arguing about whether these systems have a soul. And really what we're saying there is that it's a moral question that that we might have all the functionality in say a future robotic or AI system that mimics the psychological capabilities of the human mind.
(1:14:54) And if we're still arguing about whether it's conscious or not, what we're really arguing about is moral status. We're not arguing about uh something that we can probe scientifically. We are probing resemblance, are we not? That's all that we are probing. If a system resembles us, we call it conscious. >> Now, resemblance can always be faked >> and who knows whether even we are conscious in the first place.
(1:15:22) The thing that you raised, whether there is somebody home, >> whether there is somebody home. So I I suppose the whole thing would philosophically boil down to settling on an accepted definition of consciousness itself. Because if you label an entity conscious by by seeing certain markers, certain behavioral patterns, certain symptoms, then those symptoms can always be copied by an AI system.
(1:15:55) They are already they are already doing that. We we know of the of the of the Turing test, right? It's impossible so many times even today to tell a machine from uh what you call as a human being. So that way they are already conscious. Now the whole thing turns back to us. Are we conscious in the first place? How do we call ourselves conscious? Right? Or is it just that there is a there is a beautiful system that that you are studying as a scientist and that system is self-sufficient.
(1:16:25) However, there there comes in or or or a gate crashes an intruder a party pooper and says the system is mine. Whereas that that that one is not really needed. What you have is actually only the brain. Only the brain really exists. Right? But then somebody comes in and says the brain is mine. The brain is mine.
(1:16:47) Yes, the brain is but there is really nobody to own the brain. Therefore there is really nobody to to be conscious to be conscious. And once you say that uh the entire social order and the basis of relationships and an entire economics everything stands to collapse. So it's a difficult question as professor said but it's also a very dangerous question.
(1:17:16) >> Okay we have so many questions. How about uh right >> right right here. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Hi. Yeah. Thank you for a great talk. Um I think a thought that comes to me that the word phenomenology I think is the is the big word because when I examine sort of my own experience you know at the first level I can feel that there's this it feels that there's this locus of control and that locus of control seems to regress upon any sort of examination but then when you're in a state so for example a depersonalized state even
(1:17:51) though you don't feel that you're the locust of the action you can't deny that there is an experience of not being um a locus of the action. And so it seems that within experience there's this kind of undeniable fact that there is this this qualia you know um whereas when we talk about ego it seems to me that what you're getting at is that it's almost the the inferences we're making about our sampling of the world about our um you know the the the narrative but that too seems to be this appearance in consciousness but then when I come to
(1:18:29) look for this locus of valition or even beyond valition looking for this um locus of experience. It just seems to be this very flat sort of plane and I'm not sure that we can ever not circumvent it and I just wondered yeah what what you've thought about that and if I was understanding correctly one cannot think about it and this is subjective right I can prove it only through your life I cannot prove any of this objectively right so so I concede that Even as I begin and I concede that readily every time this can be proven
(1:19:12) only if you see it in your own life. You're talking of the ego who claims to be the center of all life. So where else would you would you look at it, observe it and whatever. You don't think of it. It's a stream. The I amness is constantly changing. Is it not? Are you the same person you are on this chair that you were outside this room? Equally at the other end of the dualistic consciousness, do you have the same object that you had two hours back?
(1:19:56) It's a stream. And the stream is flowing at both ends. The subject is changing. The object is changing. The object is influencing the subject. The subject is projecting meanings on the object and building stories. So you cannot think about it and come to a philosophical conclusion. There is liberation in just continuously watching it.
(1:20:23) If you do not watch it, you become it. And becoming that means accepting bondage, accepting slavery which is suffering. watch it and and I love to say when you watch the seer does not survive the seeing. If you have the intention to see the seeing will dissolve you. If you can look at yourself truly with the help of all whatever is possible with the help of scientific knowledge uh with the with the help of the external mirror the everything and with the help of your honesty if you can look at
(1:21:09) yourself sincerely the seeing will dissolve you and it has to be a continuous process >> that's it that's it >> no thank you >> thank you Um, I was really interested in Steve's question about not just like whether we can improve metacognition, but whether we should. Um, and I do agree with Atari's response that kind of there is some types of pain that are functional that teach us something and some that are not.
(1:21:41) Um, but I also think that this response kind of just pushes the question back a bit further because now we have to grapple with who gets to decide which pain is functional and which is not and when do we get to decide this and um how do we do it in the first place? The best decision is when there is nobody to make that decision.
(1:22:07) So do not ask who should be deciding. Ask whether there is any need for the decider. Why must the ego be an adjudicator, a decider, the the the judge when it comes to matters that are purely physical and the body is such a beautiful apparatus. You have the wonderful brain which is capable of dealing with all matters material and that includes matters of the body that includes matters of the universe that everything your brain is so wonderful.
(1:22:49) Why must the ego decide for the brain? Let let the let the brain uh make decisions. The ego has to make one decision only one decision to retreat to withdraw to be no more. So that decisions can happen in absence of the ego and any decision that happens in absence of the ego is a beautiful decision by definition. So you don't ask what kind of state of the ego is going to be the best decider, the best judge.
(1:23:22) No no no state of the ego is a great state. Only the reduced state is a relatively good state. Let watch the ego so that you are no more there in your own life and then let decisions flow. The brain is capable of making decisions. Life itself makes decisions. You don't have to decide. I I think this is a very interesting question about about to what extent should we as a society be trying to put in place structures that change people's pain and suffering because we have decided I think there there is a very clearcut decision that
(1:24:08) has been made we have decided as a societ so society and example of anesthesia is a lovely one that that is not acceptable. That the doctors and um the voters and our health services around the world have largely decided we would prefer if anesthetists had a job and could do an anesthesiology. Um but there are grayer cases I think and the we can take examples from medicine of grayer cases particularly in there's a live debate in the UK at the moment about how much we should be um giving children medication for
(1:24:51) conditions such as ADHD um and certain children clearly benefit from those medications but then there is a debate about are people being say overmedicated and I think What? Well, I I don't want to answer for you. be very interested to hear your response to this because I think that would be a maybe a case where the question is pointing out that there are some aspects that society has said that's clearcut but there are others where maybe it's not quite clear whether we should be um encouraging people >> to to um not have that suffering because
(1:25:31) that seems to be quite an anti- uh it's quite a strong position to take when you consider some of these gray area medical cases. >> So, so let's assume that this room is full of qualified doctors, PhDs, professionals, intellectuals who know all about this field and they [clears throat] have been entrusted with the responsibility.
(1:25:55) Please decide this thing which is very critical >> uh for for the for the kids of of this nation >> because there's no no marginal matter. Somebody might be harmed >> but we also see that a few kids are benefiting from this. It's a very serious matter. We must sincerely go into this. And all of these here are capable and knowledgeable professionals and I am to say something to them.
(1:26:25) What I'll say is please see where your decision is coming from. You have all the knowledge. You have all the expertise. I'm nobody in front of you when it comes to domain knowledge that you hold. >> Right? All I would ask is is your decision coming from facts of the situation or from glory of the past. Is your decision coming from facts of the situation or attachment to kids particularly of your species? Is your decision coming from the facts of the situation or is it coming from how other influential countries have decided?
(1:27:04) That's all that I would invite you to look into. Beyond that, you are the best judge. I am nobody to advise you. So, so you see the brain I would repeat the the the territory uh you daily walk into I marvel at it such a beautiful one right but I don't marvel at the ego [laughter] >> so that's the thing I want to sincerely honestly continuously target target in terms of look at it so that uh it doesn't it doesn't you know get to do what it does in the dark.
(1:27:43) So yes, all doctors are wonderful. What what spoils their practice or their opinion is the ego, right? I'm not talking of an unqualified quack here, right? If there is one such person, we'll say no, your problem might not be the ego. Your problem is that you're not educated enough. Let's enroll you somewhere else and let's first of all please get you out of this room.
(1:28:05) But the room is already full of qualified people. Still they may get the decision horribly wrong. Now what is it? What is it that causes that horribly wrong decision even from otherwise great people? That that is the danger that I would want to address. That is the danger I would want to get out of the way of welfare of British kids.
(1:28:30) >> That danger is the ego. Otherwise you the the decision can be made. You can you can you you have all the scientific apparatus. You can do studies. You can you can uh you can do scientific studies, you can have uh psychological uh surveys, you can talk to parents, you can talk to there [clears throat] is just so much we can do.
(1:28:48) Obviously there is no limit. Uh I too have a science and technology background. So I know how well equipped we are but still we turn out so destructive still we use all the science and technology and knowledge for such nefarious uses. Who does that? That's the one I intend to you know spar with. That's all. >> So many questions, but we are starting to come to the end of our time here.
(1:29:15) So, we can take just a couple more maybe and then we'll we'll close up because I know people do have places to go. So, um yes, back here please. >> Hi, thank you both for interesting talk. Um I wanted to ask just both of you more on this notion of Detian illusionism and so on. Um, I think uh something I find myself wondering is what's the like cash value so to speak of illusionism as a whole because it seems to rely on this unearned sort of ep epistemic leap of faith on our extreceptive access which is to say that everything I sort of
(1:29:52) interact with in the world as an individual um is laundered through experience right and if I look at my we can sort of very sort of clearly clearly see that our interceptive states as being discussed today are inaccurate. Right? But then to go on to say that the sort of qualitative nature of what I see is illusory. It isn't actually.
(1:30:13) It merely seems to be as a kind of representation or self model or some other model. Um I I think it's worth keeping in mind that the evidence I use to source this is also appearing in my experience. It's also part participating in the sort of field of subjectivity. And I find myself wondering how we can sort of license empirically or otherwise this idea that our external perceptions somehow are you know immune to because if if illusionism is true then that means that all of my perceptions extraceptive and interceptive are
(1:30:46) compromised like uh empirically. So I find myself kind of wondering how we can justify illusionism on those grounds. So I I think that I don't I think it's a very interesting question, but I don't agree that illusionism um necessitates then thinking that our experience is an illusion. I think this is a common misreading of illusionism as a technical term in consciousness science.
(1:31:17) I don't think it's probably not a great term really. I think if the illusionists had their time again when they were coming up with this concept, they would have labeled it somewhat differently. Um, all it's saying and it's actually um connects back to the previous question as well. All it's saying is that we cannot um gain access to the scientific basis of consciousness via firsterson experience.
(1:31:46) That's all that's all it's saying. So it's saying that you know our perception of the world is real our to the extent to which it's adaptive as the previous questioner was pointing out it's the illusion is not about the outside world. The illusion is about the notion that our the the scientific basis of our experience is revealed to us through p first person experience.
(1:32:08) Now if you if you take that as a starting point that's what leads to the hard problem. The notion of irreducible subjectivity, the notion that you need a radical metaphysics to solve consciousness, all of those things flow from assuming that it is revealed to us via first-person experience. Illusionists are just saying hang on, let's maybe treat it as let's maybe be a skeptic as as we were talking about before about the basis of our experience. That that's all it's saying.
(1:32:34) >> I think that's very reasonable. But the biological evidence that I use to buttress the possibility that my first person evidence is not you know uh giving me direct access is itself accessed through my first person experience. I'm I'm never circumventing the condition of my own subjectivity. >> So >> but that I think is why so in a way that that's the problem that the anti-illusionist suffers from the the phenomenal realist suffers I think from the problem you're describing.
(1:33:03) So I I think it's perfectly reasonable. >> Maybe we should we shouldn't have too much back and forth otherwise we we could go on for forever. Um >> you wanted to ask both of >> I think it's it's well settled [laughter] >> when it comes to when it comes to there are hardly any things that we experience when it comes to illusionism.
(1:33:33) Uh what if the one who is experiencing is itself just a story. No, you see you said something about illusionism and then professor said that is not what illusionism uh exactly is but you believed that you know what illusionism is. Now, now, now we are all intellectuals and it should not be too difficult to accurately see what a scientific paper says or what how a philosophical theory reads.
(1:34:11) But still there is someone here who is who is generating a story out of whatever whatever he is hearing this conversation or whatever he's reading. That one is the illusion. That experiencer, that receiver inside the world outside is is hardly an an illusion. In fact, this kind of a thing you find in uh non-dualistic philosophy also >> where achar shanker would say, you know, jagat mita.
(1:34:44) So they would say okay, the entire world is an illusion because uh we cannot have epistemic certaintity. Uh >> it's all coming to you via the senses and the mind is conditioned and the rest of it. But when you go close to it, what you find is that yes, it probably is all of an illusion because the what you call as the body that lends geometry to the universe and what you call as the ego that lends story and meaning to the universe.
(1:35:11) This is a three-dimensional body. That's a threedimensional universe. [laughter] And because I exist here, so the entire universe exists for me. I'm the owner. I'm the consumer. I'm the storyteller. I will posit a god. I'll say uh God made the world and God uh made the human being man as his supreme creation and all those things.
(1:35:34) So that's where the illusion lies. The illusion lies in the in the ego. The illusion lies not outside in what you see but the one who sits inside and collects reports of what has been seen by the eyes and distorts the entire report to suit its own objective of self-preservation. So yes, illusionism. Yes, obviously.
(1:36:01) Who would say that he has not stumbled in life? Who would say that he he has he has not been shocked in life? Who would say that he has not been duped or or cheated? But you and and the worst kinds of of shockers come from often come from those you were very certain of, the ones you trusted. Now, was that not an illusion? Please ask yourself what you what you call as your relationships, what you think of as yourself, what you think of as your knowledge, how reliable is all of that? And science is honest. Science would always say,
(1:36:37) okay, this stands only as long as it is not negated. But then in our life, we would say, I'm 100% certain of this, 100% certain of that, and only to end up in psychological harm. Now all this is illusion because the one entering the relationship is hardly even the system. The one entering the relationship is the inner ego and since the inner ego is an illusion therefore everything around you uh ends up being simply an illusion and that results in harm and suffering.
(1:37:07) That's all that I have to say. >> So I've been told we will take one final question in the back here and then and then we really should wrap up. >> Thank you. Um this has been very very fascinating discussion. So thank you professor Flebing and thank you Achara G. Just a a last question or quick question from Asia Gi is when you when um I was reading your volume one on Bhagat Gita when you write about chapter 2 there's somewhere you actually write which I think struck with me um is that everybody thinks so right from an ant to
(1:37:40) tiger to a human being but they all are bounded by their limitation of how much they are able to think so there's a paragraph where you talk about saying all our scientific development is come out of the evolved thinking of the human being because the human being has been able to expand that boundary. If that's the case and thinking is limited by whatever even if it's expanded but it is still limited how should I I was actually going to come to the topic about how should I think about thinking and then the question is really
(1:38:12) around can thinking take us to realizing I'll refer to professor's book's title know thyself and if not then who can you see inking thinking is an innate property of the system. That's why I said that even even the even the smallest creatures they think. Huh. Uh professor Chitka I was speaking to the other day he was talking of of beautiful work that he has done on bees.
(1:38:50) Similarly Dr. Burch work that he has done on octopuses and they all have that physical self. Bees know for example how to make their way out of uh a little little uh cleavage in the wall somewhere. So they would fly sideways for example. That can happen only if they know that this is my body and this is the geometry of my body.
(1:39:16) Right? They have to know that only then they can you know adjust themselves to fly out of the little uh cavity available. So, so that that is there thinking is happening you you're designed to think when it comes to the ants thinking is happening even without words. You need not have the supportive structure of language to think right bees don't have the lang kind of languages we have but they still think and they not only think they also cooperate with each other and all that is happening without uh the kind of language that we have.
(1:39:53) When you talk of this this actually what it means to convey is seeing how thinking happens. This is the the second thinking refers to something in the system. The first one refers to insight. And what is insight? Insight is not an action of the system. Insight is the removal of the intruder in the system. The system can look at itself but the intruder distorts the vision.
(1:40:33) See look at your life. You are the one best placed to acknowledge what is happening there. But still you don't acknowledge. It should be very easy to see what is happening in your life. But we all live in self- glory and self-concepts. Sometimes self-pity. Why? Because because because seeing what is happening including thinking is not really difficult. It is happening here.
(1:40:55) Who else would acknowledge? Who else would know? You would know. You would know. But there is somebody who who blocks it, distorts it. So the first one really refers to insight. Insight. That insight can ride upon thought which is fine. But that insight can even be thoughtfree. Most importantly that insight must be ego-free only then you will really see what is going on right so it's not as if you are saying okay uh how can I use the function of a system to look at system itself that is anyway happening that's the entire work that professor has done
(1:41:37) and we all uh are are recipients of that work we know the system looks at itself h you must see what blocks the system for acknowledging what it already knows about itself. Don't you already know about yourself that you have a tendency to wake up late and yet you trust yourself to catch the morning flight and you miss it.
(1:42:02) That's what you must examine in spite of knowing myself. Why do I act in selfharming ways? That's insight. And that comes when the ego steps back, gets out of the way. Well, I think that that is a beautiful place for us to end this lovely conversation. Uh right, coming back to to where we started with.
(1:42:29) So, um thank you both so much for this truly engaging time. Please help me. YES. [applause] And thank you all for your lovely questions and your commentary and uh we'll see you next time. >> Thank you so much. That was really excellent. Really, really great. No, it was a wonderful discussion. Really great. >> I didn't get to know when we passed these two hours.
(1:43:01) It was very busy, very smooth. No, >> absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Very nice to meet you. Thank you. Same here. Thank you. Thank you sir so much. What's the date today? >> 8th 9th. >> It's good that I know that I don't know.
(1:43:55) >> Yes. Yes. [laughter] Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the your time in the UK. >> Thank you. I'm flying back tomorrow. Okay. But I'll be back in September, October. Hope to see you. >> Yes. Safe troubles. Lovely to meet you. >> Just download the Achar Prashant app and there you go to the community section and you have live testimonials streaming in at the rate of one every 5 minutes.
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