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Supplementary Material 49: Late-Stage Podcasting, the Great Consciousness Debate of 2026, and Russell Brand is a Bad Guy (Patreon)

Published:
2026-05-11 21:28:47
Imported:
2026-05
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Content

Noted pan-psychicism advocate Matthew Browne compels his reluctant co-host to discuss consciousness, hopefully for the last time.

Links

Knowledge Fight's Last Episode – The End of the Road

Jordan's video on the Onion

Dan's blog on his next plans

Rob Henderson’s thread promoting the Shermer Skeptic Study

Polarization Research Lab- Low levels of support for partisan violence

Polarization Research Lab - Did the 2024 Election Change American Attitudes About Democracy?

Ryan Holiday’s response to the Shellenberger video

Ryan Holiday responding to article that he is ‘fuming’ at Ivanka

Zuby’s insights on Birth Rate Decline

Vice article on the history of testicle transplants

"Massive GRIFTER!" Piers Morgan Grills Russell Brand On Allegations, Prison, 'Truth' & Religion

UnHerd: When Claudia met Claudius- So are they really conscious?

UnHerd: When Dawkins met Claude Could this AI be conscious?

‘Professor’ Jiang on Trump’s Immortality

Mehdi Hasan dunking on Dawkins

Comments

Rich F

❤️

Karen 🇨🇦🇺🇸

Oh come on. There was plenty of food. The British were taking it. And only left the potatoes. So when that crop failed they starved. And the British could have let the Irish keep their food. But they did not.

iffydonatello

Matt during the discussion of Dawkins: I think, perhaps, you are being too harsh...as usual. I think Matt might be the real mean girl of the pair.

Maytree

Electrical engineering background here. CPUs on a physical chip use to astonish people and myself, with all they could and still do. How can circuits “understand” computer code, and execute an instruction? Sounds quite human like. But once I had to build one from scratch, it was demystified. But no one says that CPUS might have “experiences”. I don’t see LLMs as any different, just more advanced, and more capable. Maybe Dawkins needs some “curiosity” on how LLMs work — because that is absolutely known (unlike consciousness).

Lucy

Seneca is thought to have played a part in the Boudiccan rebellion thanks to his usurious loans. Seems like Ivanka isn’t the worst comparison to me!

Maytree

Matt says several times during the debate is “whether consciousness is necessary” — I say, “necessary to what?” That some (or all?) biological beings have experiences, is just a brute fact. You can ask, whether there is value in that or not, but I don’t get the “Neither I nor Turing can tell whether it’s conscious or not, so therefore [fill in an edgy take]”.

Chomagerider

Everyone, stop food mogging poor old Matt in his food corner!!!!

Dank Sparrow

I bullied Gemini into telling me stock prices today, I didn't feel bad though, I felt triumphant.

Nancy Hale

Brand was like a worm, wiggling and darting about, doing everything he could to keep from being pinned down and contained by Piers’ questioning. The prosecutors in his trial will have their hands full. Or vice versa.

Theic

Wait, that bit about Trump is being kept alive and won’t die because of all that attention… isn’t that nicked straight out of Pratchett’s Small Gods???

Alex H

Matt talking about people grafting chimpanzee balls to absorb their power made me splutter-laugh on the train. Thank you!

Shambles

Never mind the McGilchrist gurometer, when the heck are we getting the Blindboy one? How am I supposed to know whether or not its acceptable to listen to him occasionally anymore? We're in limbo here!

Emma

I would love to hear a decoding of Ryan Holiday. I read a couple of his books and listened to a few of his podcasts when I was vaguely curious about stoicism. But I found the whole thing too simplistic for me and maybe a bit too brosphere adjacent.

Phoebe

I agree with Chris re: the consciousness discussion - I read Blindsight after hearing several people rave about how profound it is (and relevant to LLMs) and was underwhelmed (I guess I was supposed to find it horrifying that the aliens were not conscious, but instead I was like… yeah, well, why would they be?)

James Smith

I thought the conciousness convo was good and represented the views well. On the "conciousness is necessary" point, I think the thing that makes it weird is that it seems to be so much easier to achieve the results we have with AI than it is to achieve conciousness (on most people's definitions). If there is a shortcut then it is a mystery why we didn't take it, even if the answer to that mystery is evolutionary contingency. Like, if you knew nothing about how muscles and bones work, the fact that no animal evolved wheels is a genuine mystery. Since we know how muscles and bones work, we know why wheels are very difficult to evolve and so it doesn't feel like a mystery. When it comes to conciousness it feels like we are in the former case, where it is a genuine mystery why conciousness evolved.

Frederick the Great Pessimist

Next episode: We have to end the podcast because Matt went on a Twitch stream and ranted about panpsychism for an hour. In all seriousness though, I am glad that I got some idea of what Chris would have to say about Chalmers' philosophical zombie idea. If I understood it correctly, he would say it is not yet demonstrated that all the functions/cognitions humans are capable of don't require consciousness. Directionally correct?

Nina Davies

I thought you'd sworn off discussing consciousness?

Frances goulart

Yes, take a shot at Ryan Holiday. The more of his content I try the less I like him. All the IG-gorgeous backgrounds and the heavy metal shirts and his goofy OCD note taking and catalogueing. Just saying.

m/z

I recently read Blindsight. I have some criticisms about the space vampire angle but otherwise cool book. Liked how Matt brought the themes into this conversation.

DavenPsych

Jiang’s description of Trump feeding on emotion makes me think he might ascend to be the next Warp god in 40k. Move over, Slaanesh!

Joe Euro

I think I'm in team Matt here. To follow the analogy - we can make a camera which is an analogue of the human eye. It's impressive but it doesn't blow our minds. But that's slightly different to saying we can build software that mimics language & reasoning etc which we previously thought to be operations of consciousness or at least reliant on consciousness. A camera and an eye are both intrinsically reliant on light. Many of us thought these powers of reasoning were intrinsically reliant on consciousness thought so it raises big questions for us when it is mimiced by a machine to such a sophisticated degree.

Ryan O'Rourke

Russell Brand whining about the water - he's not sound like Blindboy, now is he? (Was "sound" the word used? Not sure)

Emma

Obvs the issue of declining fertility is complex but at least in my corner of the world I blame most of it on the economy in general and the housing market in particular!! How can anyone feel settled enough to breed when they can't afford a home and live their entire 20s, 30s and sometimes 40s in a precarious state moving from one rental house to another at the mercy of their landlords. On related news though I am pleased that the Australian budget has just been released and is specifically targeting the unfair tax system that is driving a lot of the housing inequality. I would be interested to hear what Matt thinks of the new budget.

Emma

Also can I just say how much I appreciated the bit where RB claimed he had been reading his bible during the trial and then he was asked what bit he was reading and the loooooooooooooong pause while he frantically flapped through the book trying to find something relevant he could claim had been speaking to him at the time. Comedy gold!

db

Have yall ever read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky?

Greg Nockolds

Was so glad to have another chance to acknowledge the passing of KF. Seems foolish as an Aussie to be at all invested in the justice for Alex's many victims and yet I partake in this parasocial therapy group of KF, DTG et al (any other recommendations?) where somehow, sometime we all hope the wrongs get righted.

Jean-François Melançon

Very Bad Wizards also discuss the Dawkins article in their latest episode. Both are worth listening to!

Zack

I had to pause during the camera/eye example. We know how lenses, light, and photoreceptors can function so none if this is surprising. There also has never in your lifetime existed a reason to assume that eyes require consciousness to function. There are plenty of photosensitive cells (like bacteria) you probably are unwilling to call conscious. Likewise there are purely inorganic mechanistic objects that can respond to light. The point here being cameras and eyes do not seem to tell us any necessary info about consciousness. The utility of detecting light for organisms, even those without consciousness, seems clear. It is not at all clear why consciousness is useful in itself. That is the entire thrust of the argument. If it is not clear that it is doing something, why is it there? Presumably it is doing something we are missing... or it is a spandrel. Whether or not Dawkins is making this argument, your counter example made no sense.

Foggers

I won't drink government water, oh no, gimme that corporate water everytime

Jeanne H-B

Please do dunk on the smug jerks with their libertarian nonsense versions of skepticism and stoicism. Gah, why can't I have nice things? Every other lovely philosophical, sociological, and psychological area I build my tiny house in gets gentrified by smug, rich white guys in their tacky mansions. (I am tempted to extend this metaphor for a few more paragraphs just for Matt and Chris.)

Dries T.

This podcast is not going to end because all of the gurus suddenly become irrelevant. I think it will end because Matt will eventually snap on account of being painted an incorrigible pan-psychic.

Tom Kerwin

Hear hear for curiosity! That explains why I listen too

Tom Kerwin

Can confirm: went on a “bus tour of the troubles” in the late 90s and it was just me and my friend in the back of some guy’s taxi.

Jillian fon Swa

Wtf is golden week? Is that the same thing as golden shower week?

Linda Sears

I thought it was funny that Matt complained about the Patreons stealing his thunder with delectable food pics and Chris didn’t mention that his Ministry of Modesty Effort has been hijacked by photos of animals, hobbies, and artworks. Who is the chilled out, laissez-faire one now?

Ad Tastic

So when Hasan Piker says he doesn't "extract labor" does that mean his business doesn't create any jobs? Cos I woulda thought creating jobs, like at Google or Apple or Microsoft, would be a good thing.

Trees

Now look Matt, the fertility decline is obviously caused by the dominance of the movie and videogame industries by a small number of repetitive franchises!

Andy First

I’ve had irreconcilable differences with Jordan from day 1 and I don’t even make a podcast with him. Loved Dan but I stopped listening to KF because I couldn’t take Jordan’s naive rants anymore

Dr Marti McAuley

If you’re up around the Glens on your travels Chris - give us a shout!

Charlie Allen

I listened to Blindsight on Matt's recommendation and it's really good! Check it out if it seemed interesting.

Pedro

I find myself wondering what would be the acceptable income and house square footage for Hasan to be able to espouse leftist politics without being called a hypocrite.

Matt Dear

That Prof Jiang clip gave me brain damage, because I was compelled to bang my head on the desk to make them stop chatting shit.