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Supplementary Material 39: Panpsychics, Sensemakers, and Bad Guys (Patreon)

Published:
2025-11-01 07:27:21
Edited:
2025-11-01 07:27:40
Imported:
2025-11
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Content

Chris and Matt walk into a bar with an atheist sensemaker, an Ayurvedic Guru, and a Christian Apologist, and predictable frivolities ensue. Featuring not one but two good-natured, robust exchanges of opinion between our two hosts.

Supplementary Material 39: Panpsychics, Sensemakers, and Bad Guys

00:00 Introduction

01:17 AI and the Music Industry

05:34 Is Chris a Bad Guy?

10:44 Vibe Physics with Travis Kalanick

16:10 Efforts to Falsify and AI

21:02 Gordon Pennycook with Sean Carroll: Vibes vs Analysis

32:44 Libertarianism and Personal Beliefs

35:10 A mini-debate on internal consistency

42:49 Matt's Personal Philosophy

44:16 Philosophical Feedback on the Sensemakers

55:06 Atheist vs Christian vs Spiritual Thinker

57:03 Dr. K's Role in the Discussion

01:09:01 Alex's Stance on Purpose

01:12:31 Dr. K's Perspective on Purpose

01:23:45 Dr. K and the Atheist pose

01:34:29 Philosophical Musings on Panpsychism

01:41:18 Outro

Sources

Angela Collier: Conspiracy physics and you (and also me)

All In Podcast: Travis Kalanick talks about AI (July 11, 2025)

333 | Gordon Pennycook on Unthinkingness, Conspiracies, and What to Do About Them

Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Barr, N., Koehler, D. J., & Fugelsang, J. A. (2015). On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. Judgment and Decision Making, 10(6), 549-563.

The Diary of a CEO: Atheist vs Christian vs Spiritual Thinker: Is Not Believing In God Causing More Harm Than Good?!

Comments

qwerrttzz

As an IT student I can say that specificly IT people are known to be notorious, when it comes to overestimating their abilities in different fields and from my expirience it is 100% correct. I myself am strugeling everyday to not become insufferable jerk.

Unfitforpurpose

No one tell Matt about the christian nationalist evangelical movement in the US. I fear it would upset him.

iffydonatello

The "Oh my God!" from Chris after Matt said "I'm not a panpsychist." made me snort into my coffee. And Matt slowly drifting into sensemaking style definition chopping provides the drama I needed.

Brice F

Dr K content just hits the spot* *That spot is my kneecaps and it hits like a baseball bat swung by Shohei Ohtani

Jen

I really hate the delivery of certain words by Mr. K. Just freaking say Karma the way we all say it. He seems to get so high off of this. I need to watch some cartoons to cleanse my pallet. Love you guys!!

Jenny

A bit surprised that Matt seems not to recognize the pervasive nature of those who advocate for Sharia-equivalent law for Christians. Those people are MAGA and they're now in charge of my country (P. S. I laughed out loud when the clip was played of that guy saying there is objective data showing that specifically Christians were the happiest religious people. What an idiotic assertion. I.e. the religion I and the people I know follow is the best one. Yeah, right)

Linda Sears

Chris, keep up the “bad guy” look. It suits a decoder of gurus.

Linda Sears

The religious libertarian type of woman Matt was describing reminds of the people that tend to live out in the Western, often rural parts of the U.S. that have the live and let live, keep the government off our backs belief system. I’m not sure how common they are now, but there used to be a goodly amount of religious yet libertarian people who held those kinds of views. I think the ones who hold these ideas are Christians who believe humans should choose to be believers and that the government shouldn’t get involved.

Maytree

The reason we boulder is not to offer something to someone else to do. We boulder to do it. With music, the main reason we make it is to offer it to others to listen to. There are of course exceptions. People like to watch others boulder. People like to play an instrument only for themselves. Maybe AI being able to do it all won’t impact human incentives negatively,IdK, but the analogy isn’t very strong IMO.

Chris Rincón

Surely possessing some sort of integrated nervous system is a necessary prerequisite for anything we’d reasonably describe as consciousness. Extending the term to objects without any evident sensory-perceptual capacity completely denudes it of all descriptive utility. Panpsychism may be a deductively coherent position but it’s empirically unfalsifiable and pragmatically pointless. Feels like motivated reasoning for people who can’t tolerate the ambiguity surrounding the hard problem of consciousness (“we don’t know how consciousness arises from non-conscious matter, so maybe everything is already a little bit conscious”).

Maytree

Alex’s point is trivially easy to understand unless you are making stuff up on the fly, like Dr. K.

Stephen Cromwell

Bouldering, Iain M Banks, Red Dwarf, Dunking on Dr K and the lads arguing over consciousness. This episode has everything I want in a DTGSM

Maytree

Im not a panpsychist (!), but Chris, Alex explains that the panpsychist don’t think rocks are conscious. That plastic bottles are not conscious. But that they are « made of consciousness ». I think it’s all crap but I think it sounds like there is some distinction here that maybe favors Matt’s argument that’s not really addressed by the water/sand distinction?

Bernt

Oh boy, a new supplementary materials for my birthday!

Ymirsdreams

In Prof. Matt's defence: may people who have read my comments have concluded a distinct commonality between my level of consciousness and rocks.

Roland Weber

That was a fast response to the Mindscape episode! 😁

Roland Weber

Talking of Panpsychism... is Iain McGilchrist still on your to-be-decoded list?

Yummee

Ugh Dr K… He just rubs me the wrong way. Even the way he asks the question about purpose, but then wants the other people to guess his own position. To me it feels like a tactic to draw people into a dynamic where he gets to be in charge. Why not just answer the question simply? I’m delighted that Alex O’Connor refused to indulge Dr K.

Lillie

Did I miss seeing Chris in a turtleneck????😩🤩

Ty Black

I think the issue with asking for AI for any opinion at all is that of all the information that it eats up, it's only going to regurgitate the most average viewpoint or opinion within the context of your parameters. So your results will always be only mediocre at best. I'm not sure how that's helpful for that use case.

Zack

Im definitely not on board with panpsychism, but I also see no reason to dismiss it (the combination problem does seem lile a real problem though). You should read some David Chalmers and just dig into the SEP on it if ya haven't!

Zack

The key question panpsychism is trying to answer is why/how subjectivity was able to arise out of a material world. These seem like two entirely different categories of existence, so the appearance of subjectivity is a miracle. Their solution... push consciousness back into the nature of world (which kind of feels like we are shoving the miracle back one step).

Nancy Hale

There’s a certain kind of Christian Libertarianism that helped build the far right in the US. Really amped up post WWll, think McCarthyism & Red Scare anti communism/socialism. A strong fear of a powerful central government that they believe might infringe upon rights of individual Christians & churches, as well as other individual rights. Libertarian from an economic perspective as well. I once knew an ultra conservative Evangelical Christian who was also a huge Ayn Rand fan.

John Pohl

Some would state that panpsychism is based on the more basic concept of panexperientialism. In other words, all entities experience. Not all entities are conscious; all entities may have some degree of experience. I tend to lean in the panexperiential camp, but I think it is a philosophical argument more than a scientific hypothesis at this point.

Trees

As a frequent Chris critic, I have to say I don't understand where this philosopher is coming from. Chris was clearly saying JP attempts to bring in the same themes to every topic they visited. He wasn't saying that JP actually made convincing or even coherent arguments. Must be his first dialogos!

Trees

I was musing on how terrible an argument the Christian Apologist had made only to be pulled back into the podcast by Dr. K talking about veins visibility, cold hands, and poop. Maybe Dr K was there to make Christianity look good.

Eric Ireland

On the subject of sycophantic chat bots, you can choose from five personalities on ChatGPT and I prefer the “robot” personality.

James P.

Chris you don't look like a piece of shit, but you definitely look like you you USED TO BE a piece of shit

Cautious Dissolute

This episode made me realise I don't have the stomach to listen to Dr. K

Zendegi Leonard

Was with Matt on the protester. She valued law in the physical world and Christian beliefs in the spiritual. That's how how she saw it. Pretty rare but also kind of terrifying. There is a film about the Wanasee conference (Conspiracy) that shows this type of rationality. Dr Willhelm Stuckart(Colin Firth) is shown growing uneasy of the discussions, almost as if he is against it. But is revealed to be uneasy with the implications it would have on the legal system. In his mind what they were doing would be acceptable as long as it followed the law(He was also a massive anti-Semite who wrote the Nuremberg laws). It was chilling to watch.

Russell

I generally agree with the AI takes but do think that there is a slight difference between an AI boulderer and AI artists. My two cents: There’s an output/performance aspect from working artists that is a little different than someone just doing physical feats/exercise for themselves. Contrary to the point made, I do know visual (sure, not musical, but I’m sure they exist) artists who have lost contracts to AI. I also know writing editors who have had their jobs replaced by AI. I do kinda think that sucks.

Tom Kerwin

Just a few clips of Dr K and I need a bleach bath

Guy Walter

I think Matt makes a good point about the Christian who is true to her libertarian beliefs, and Chris is wrong to say the inverse is just as consistent. If you think homosexuality is a sin, it’s not incompatible to also believe homosexuals should have personal freedom. Hell is their punishment, you don’t need to impose legal restrictions. However, if you are a libertarian, then you can’t logically advocate that people should be prevented from living lifestyles that affect nobody else. The Christian in Matt’s anecdote is a rarity in that she supported policies which were consistent with her faith and her political beliefs, rather than abandoning her political principles because of her faith. She’s an actual Christian libertarian, rather than a Christian who pretends to be a libertarian when convenient.

Mike Nelson

Listening to Dr. K causes me literal physical discomfort. His voice is torture.

Lucy

The Uber CEO reminded me of the episode of Always Sunny in which Charlie thinks he is a genius.

Salty John

Thoughts on SM 39 Argument in SM - AI art does not stop people from pursuing art (just because something/someone does it better, doesn't mean that people will will not find joy in the act pursue it): The issue with AI art is not that it stops people from pursuing and finding joy in a hobby, but that it reduces demand for human made art, thereby limiting job availability and stifling the human progression of art. Though people would likely still make “art” as a hobby, serious dedication will fizzle out. Music and visual art would likely survive though hobbyists, but I find it harder to believe that human-written books would survive. I believe that the perpetuation of human-made art benefits mankind beyond the material results. There is something within the human spirit that requires creation and expression, which is done and appreciated through art/craftsmanship. I think this is similar to activism around protecting our environment; humans can survive without much of our natural environment, but our lives are reduced without that connection and diversity. There is a value beyond the result. Solution (Partial): All AI work should be required by law to be clearly marked as such. AI artwork needs to be signed as AI generated. I think that AI is useful in generating frameworks and ideas for use by people, but should not replace End-Note: I understand that AI art is limited at the moment, but in the future I could see whole songs, paintings, and books being created and sold with minimal human involvement. For example, 3D printers could be combined with AI systems to develop other forms of art (other than digital), such as sculptures, paintings, mixed media, etc….), thereby affecting multiple disciplines. AI art does have its place, but we need to be careful about its implementation and use.

Philip Grant

I guess Dr K already ranked high on the gurometer for profiteering, but that "Why did I mention we have a membership?" must put him into 6-out-of-5 territory. Like and subscribe!

teethgrinder

You could see Dr. K´s statement that he is an atheist as his one unintended public moment of honesty :)

Elias Bjaaland

Dr. K makes my skin crawl... such a creepy individual.

Elissa

Matt’s plea for no emails made my day. I’m a simple ( conscious? ) soul

Idan Ca

Im willing to pay extra to never hear dr k again

Matt Dear

Weirdly, the thing I found most grating was Dr K's use of "bro"

Kristiyan Zhekov

The Dr K, O'Connor and that third Christian bloke together make a perfect anti-thesis for DtG

Nina J.

I agree completely with Chris’ (possibly hot) take about overly confident men exercising that part of their personalities with AI. The alternative is that they do it with women, and that is the root of what is known as “mansplaining,” I think. Part of it is certainly a misogynistic underestimation of the expertise of women – I’m a tattoo artist, and I cannot tell you how many times a man has spouted complete bullshit to me about tattooing AFTER learning what I do for a living – but the rest is absolutely just insane optimism about their own proficiency. Not all men, of course; for instance, my partner uses ChatGPT as a tool to learn new technical skills, and this hasn’t led to him believing he has revolutionary insights into anything. In the case of those who are predisposed to seeing themselves as revolutionary and insightful, though, chat bots are almost certainly saving the women around them from pedantic and ill-informed diatribes.

Charlie

I demand more dr k