Discussion with Philip Pullman

Discussion with 'Modern Wisdom'

Philip Pullman and I had a public discussion on consciousness, panpsychism, and the philosophy of His Dark Materials at Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford.

This is a good, recent intro to my views on consciousness. Towards the end we discuss the state of society and I explain why I am a 'non-believing Christian.'

Debate with a materialist

If you have questions like 'How can panpsychism be tested?' or 'Isn't consciousness just an emergent property?', then this'd probably be a good video to watch​

Does Consciousness Point to God?

 This is a debate I had recently with Christian neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx (actually, we only debate God in the last 10 mins).

​GALILEO'S ERROR: FOUNDATIONS FOR A NEW SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

​This is a video of the launch event for my book, which was with family and friends in Durham Castle. I give a short talk, which sums up the 'big picture' themes of the book.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND FUNDAMENTAL REALITY

This is a talk I gave in Munich in January 2018 concerning the main themes of my academic book Consciousness and Fundamental Reality. ​

​DEBATE ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND PANPSYCHISM

This is a debate I participated in at the How the Light Gets In philosophy and music festival at Hay on Wye in June 2018. ​

"CONSCIOUSNESS LIVE!" DISCUSSION

Here's a two hour discussion I had with Richard Brown as part of 'Consciousness Live!'. This gets much more into the details of my academic work, mainly on my arguments against materialism.  ​

DOES CONSCIOUSNESS EXIST?

This is a two and a half hour debate I had with Keith Frankish, whose an excellent philosophy who happens to be of the opinion that consciousness doesn't exist. This gets a bit technical.

TOWARDS A 'POST-GALILEAN' PARADIGM

This presentation was part of a 7 day conference cruise of Greenland, organised by Dmitry Volkov and Daniel Dennett. In it I explain my 'big picture' view of how we should go about trying to find out what reality is like.

THOUGHTS ON PANPSYCHISM

These videos are from a 2011 conference on panpsychism in Munich, organised by Godehard Bruntrup. The conference resulted in this 2016 Oxford University Press volume on panpsychism. ​

A neo-Cartesian approach to metaphysics

What role should common sense play in metaphysics?

Panpsychism versus panprotopsychism

TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This is 20 minute talk I gave as part of a plenary panel at the 'Towards a Science of Consciousness' conference in Arizona in 2012. The first half is a good introduction to my 'big picture' of the relationship between consciousness, science, and philosophy. The second half is a bonkers view I tried for six months to defend and then gave up on.

The panel consisted of three short talks followed by this discussion among the speakers:

PHYSICALISM AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM

​David Papineau (KCL) and I have been philosophical enemies/friends/collaborators for the last ten years. We have polar opposite views - I am a panpsychist and he is a physicalist - but we have developed our views in discussion with each other. Here we discuss and debate our different views for 'Philosophy TV'.