Firas Zahabi responds to Dawkins on AI

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]So uh Richard Dawkins was interacting with an AI program and then he made a uh a particular argument for the ability for AI to become conscious. He had certain assumptions within the uh argument that he formulated. One of them was that consciousness evolved. One of them is that consciousness can be incremental and one of them was that the naturalistic theory of consciousness is correct. Although he didn't know he was making this assumption he was. So you have three assumptions here. So what I wanted to do with Faraz was actually break down why consciousness cannot be broken down to matter because he really knows his naturalism side of things and then we can also break in this break into the difference between the hard problem of consciousness the soft problem of consciousness and why Richard Dawkins is out of his depth >> and he's basically delving into areas >> which he should not be as someone who's even out of date in terms of his own field. So we'll give it over to Faras and then I can um you know >> so start asking questions then asking specific questions for for us to >> so actually we'll start off with the definition of consciousness right we we'll start off with obviously we have the most standard definition of charas in terms of the hard problem and the soft problem so maybe for us you can warm up the audience with that and then we can get into the other areas inshallah >> you want me to give you a a definition of consciousness >> shall shall we get into the definition of consciousness or should we get to Dawkins reaction.

[00:01:23]>> I'll I'll let you >> what what was his claim? What did he what did he say?

[00:01:27]>> Okay. So his claim was number one consciousness.

[00:01:36]>> So [snorts] there we we're back now.

[00:01:40]>> His claim.

[00:01:42]>> Yeah.

[00:01:43]>> Continue.

[00:01:44]>> Yeah. You you pray and come back.

[00:01:47]>> Okay. So his claim was basically that consciousness is something that may evolve because we have these incredibly powerful machines and they they have this type of potentially incremental consciousness. So we know that there is two different uh ways of explaining consciousness. There's the soft problem which is we have processing, we have intelligence, we have this type of mimicry in terms of these programs.

[00:02:13]That's not a problem. We can we can explain that. The second is the subjective experience. The experiential uh aspect of consciousness is not something that can be explained. And this is what what's known as the hard problem of consciousness. What he does in the article is he number one claims that consciousness is something that evolved. So basically he's making an assumption which is a physicist assumption about consciousness. So he's assuming consciousness is something physical. So maybe we can begin off with that claim then I'll give you the rest of his claims and then we'll break it down together inshallah. Well, look, you have to ask him, okay, how do you know that um consciousness rests on physicalism? Something physical exists and from there there's an emergence which is something conscious.

[00:02:59]It's I'll tell you something. From all the materialist philosophers, it is impossible. There's never been a single materialist philosopher and Dawkins is the weakest of the weak. He's not a philosopher. Okay? Nobody will call him a philosopher. Nobody in in the philosophy world, he has zero credibility. Okay? In the world of logic, he has no credibility whatsoever.

[00:03:17]Okay? He's not a fascinating thinker.

[00:03:20]He's not somebody with authority, somebody we we read up on and say, "This guy's thinking is at another level."

[00:03:25]It's actually quite the opposite. His arguments quite embarrassingly bad, rudimentary, like beginner level arguments. Okay? Now, he's a good writer. He's a good writer. He's persuasive to the everyday man. But to a philosopher, he's not persuasive whatsoever. We have to ask him, "How do you know that? What makes you believe that consciousness rests inside physicality? And I'll tell you something. They're all going to be like, "Hey, well, premise one, you have a physical brain." Well, that's what we're trying to prove. It's begging the question, you started off with a physical brain. How do you know the brain is physical? And all they could ever do is point to sensation and consciousness. Okay? So, I'll tell you something. Look, >> one Muslim thinker said it best. He said, "Don't think about it as the world of ideas and the world of physics. Think about it as an external world, a world you could see, the world, the visual world, and the unseen world." Meaning your your inner thoughts are not visible to the world. Only I have access to my inner thoughts and feelings and my inner world. The external world we seem to be sharing it. I see u I see a basketball court over there. I say Sabur, do you see a basketball court over there? You give me consensus. Yes, there's a basketball court to our left. Okay, we see the physical world. You're seeing the same physical world I'm seeing. Now I tell you, Sabur, am I thinking about an apple or an orange? And you're like, I have no idea. You don't you can't give me consensus on my ideas. I have this private world.

[00:04:42]He's saying the private world emerged out of the physical world. And we ask materialist philosophers, can you put that on paper and prove it? And let me tell you something. Okay.

[00:04:52]>> So just on that, so sorry to cut your flow just on that point in one part of the article, he basically says to the AI pro program that do you have these experiences? And then he uses the answer of the AI program as one of the in as one of the inferences that he uses to argue for why it could have incremental consciousness. I didn't want to stop your flow, but what do you think of that sort of way of argument?

[00:05:20]>> Look, it's embarrassing. It's really embarrassing. Like it's really really embarrassing. Okay, because here's the thing. Okay, you know, I like to give my robot experiment to make it really simple because philosophy could be really mind-numbingly boring. Okay, imagine I'm making a robot. I'm building a robot. Okay, this robot instead of bones is going to have steel steel rods.

[00:05:39]Instead of blood, it's going to have oil. Instead of a heart, it's going to have a pump. Instead of eyes, it's going to have a camera. Instead of a brain, it's going to have a computer. This robot is identical to you, Sabur. It's identical. Its behavior, it laughs at the same jokes as you. It has the same favorite foods. I've programmed it. I've programmed it exactly like you. It does everything you do. It sleeps the same amount of hours. If it's raining outside, it takes an umbrella. It behaves exactly like Sabur. Exactly identical.

[00:06:09]If I permanently shut it off, I built it. Don't forget, I built it.

[00:06:15]Now, one day I decide, you know what?

[00:06:16]I'm going to permanently shut it off.

[00:06:18]It's going to be irreversible. Did I commit murder? Did I kill something? Did I end somebody's life? Is it is it a tragic event? Like as if somebody would do the unthinkable and permanently shut down Sabur. No, there's a difference between the two. What's that difference?

[00:06:31]Well, Sabur of the flesh, he has this internal experience. That internal experience, that awareness he has, we call that consciousness.

[00:06:40]There's an internal experience to sabur, the organic sabur, the metallic sabur, the the the machine sabur. It's having the It's giving us the appearance of an internal experience. The appearance of an internal experience is not the same thing as having an internal experience.

[00:06:59]>> Yeah, >> there's a logical leap there. You'd have to prove that the robot is having an internal experience.

[00:07:05]>> Going to pray. I'll I'll >> No, no problem. No problem.

[00:07:08]>> So, I was just I was just giving him the robot experiment, right?

[00:07:11]>> Yeah.

[00:07:11]>> Like if you build a perfect robot, it's one of my favorite thought experiments.

[00:07:14]If you build a perfect robot >> that's identical to a certain human, >> it behaves the same way. It has the same IQ. If you give it a psychology test, it scores identical to Muhammad hijab. It's identical and IQ and and what it laughs at and what it cries at and what it prefers. Uh what's what what what its favorite food is, etc., etc., etc. It's perfectly programmed. And then I permanently shut it off. Well, that's not murder. We wouldn't call it murder.

[00:07:40]>> Why is one thing murder and one thing not? Well, there's this thing we cannot bring into the arena of physics. And the you have to remember the the physicist, he just can't accept it because that's his that's his training. He's he's taught to think in terms of physics.

[00:07:56]>> Something exists outside the arena of physics. This is what basically says there's something outside the arena of physics and you have a direct experience of it. And because it's outside the arena of physics, they deny it because to them the whole world is physics.

[00:08:10]>> That's right. Yeah.

[00:08:11]>> They've made a presupposition. Their world view is limited.

[00:08:14]>> Conversation about the Chinese room experiment.

[00:08:17]>> Exactly. That's a great example.

[00:08:19]>> Would you would you know how to how would you summarize the Chinese room experiment?

[00:08:23]>> Well, think about this. Okay, there's somebody sitting in a room. This is a classic thought experiment. Okay, John's classic thought. Somebody's in a Chinese room. He s excuse me. He's sitting in a room by himself. He has a manual. The manual is in Chinese.

[00:08:34]>> Okay, somebody outside the door slips him a message in Chinese. He looks at that message and he connects it inside the manual to the exact image. When he finds the exact image, the manual tells him to reply back with another image.

[00:08:47]>> So, somebody wrote in, "Hi, how are you?" And he sends out the, "I'm doing fine, thank you. How are you?"

[00:08:52]>> Yeah.

[00:08:52]>> Now, the person outside the room is having this long conversation with the person inside the room. The person inside the room is working with a manual. Every time he receives a message, he connects it to an image and then he has options of what to send back out. If if you receive this, you send this out. If this, then that. That's the formula. That's an algorithm. Okay? If this then that. Okay. If I receive this image, I have to send out this other image. That's what a computer does.

[00:09:18]>> Basically like how chat GBT operates.

[00:09:20]Let's say >> exactly GP is actually a little bit more sophisticated. But basically it has a variety of answers. That's all it is.

[00:09:28]>> All of software, all of AI is essentially based in some way then that there's no rational. One um coder told me this before and I was he said look he does coding for a living. He said, "You need to just know one thing about coding that will help you with your da." I said, "What is it?" He said, "That you know, all of coding is based on two things. Um, loops and conditionals."

[00:09:50]That's what you said to conditionals.

[00:09:51]The whole thing is based on if then.

[00:09:54]>> So, it's if then. So, it's like you're saying just to summarize this argument.

[00:09:58]So, you've got somebody who doesn't know what he's essentially saying, but knows how to respond because he's got a manual. And is the argument that you're making therefore that just because chat GPT is saying things to you, if chat GPT says I love you, it doesn't have the same experience as when your mother says I love you to you. You could set Chad GPT to say if it's 36° C outside >> with 7% humidity and it's a Tuesday, tell Muhammad hijab that you love him.

[00:10:30]If this then that >> conditionals >> it'll do it.

[00:10:34]>> It doesn't know what it's doing. It's just spitting out information.

[00:10:37]>> It's receiving set of conditions. It's fulfilling the conditions and giving the the appearance of consciousness. Well, somebody programmed this computer >> that if these conditions arise, you behave in this manner.

[00:10:50]>> Yeah. So, in other words, it doesn't have first person subjective experience.

[00:10:54]>> None whatsoever. You know, >> it doesn't know how to feel. It doesn't how it doesn't have anger. It doesn't have love. It doesn't have any of these things that we have. That's the that's the difference. I mean, that's why a computer can never be um like a human.

[00:11:05]It can never have consciousness. Like, and Richard Dawkins and these individuals here, they to be honest with you, I mean, I think they have outdated arguments. It's not just I mean, they tried this about 10, 15 years ago and now they're they're outdated arguments.

[00:11:21]No one believes in these things. You know, everyone knows AI and robots are different to human beings. There's never going to be a time where a robot is going to be whatever you do to it and however realistic it looks. We all are mature enough to know that I think you made this point before in one of the streams that we had before that when you destroy a robot, it's never going to be classified as murder. It's going to always be destroyed. It's going to be classified as destroying property, isn't it?

[00:11:47]>> And there's there's another layer as well. Okay. Now, this next thought experiment, I think, makes it crystal clear.

[00:11:53]>> Imagine a room full of children and we're entertaining them with puppets.

[00:11:56]Mhm.

[00:11:57]>> And the puppets are happy, they're sad, they're laughing, they're joking, and the kids are being entertained by this drama that we're putting up on the on the on the stage.

[00:12:06]>> Mhm.

[00:12:07]>> The child might be convinced that that puppet is alive.

[00:12:11]>> Because it looks like me. It has eyes.

[00:12:13]It has a mouth. It's moving. It's happy.

[00:12:15]It's sad. But really, it's the child projecting his consciousness onto the puppet.

[00:12:22]>> This is what we call emergence. I'm projecting my mind onto the puppet. That puppet is like me. He's happy. He likes cookies. He sings. He dance. You're projecting onto that puppet because you have life inside inside you. Okay?

[00:12:37]You're projecting life outside of you.

[00:12:39]You're seeing that, hey, life is is is reflected in this puppet here.

[00:12:45]>> Dawkins is doing the same thing. He's seeing a robot talks and sounds like me.

[00:12:50]>> It likes things and dislikes things like me. Therefore, it must be have an internal He's making a leap now. He's saying, "Therefore, it must have an internal experience like me."

[00:13:01]>> Yeah.

[00:13:01]>> Now, in a child, we would laugh at him.

[00:13:03]We say, "Look, he's young. He's duped.

[00:13:04]>> He doesn't [clears throat] understand.

[00:13:05]It's just a puppet. There's a lot going on behind the stage."

[00:13:08]>> To be honest, that that is a ve I think that's a very good way of of putting it.

[00:13:13]It's like a It is like a childlike argument really, isn't it? [laughter] >> He's he's fallen to the illus illusion that children fall to. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:22]Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:13:23]>> What happened to his skep being so skeptical? What happened to being so skeptical? He's not skeptical enough, you know? He's just he's just skeptical of anything that isn't physics because he's trained a certain way. He's trained to think a certain way. So, he wants he wants to bring you down to the world of physics. But you're beyond you're there's something outside of the world of physics and they hate it. Oh, they hate it. They despise it. We're doing psychology here because he just can't come to the terms to the fact that look, there's this secret element. There's this thing in the universe that we cannot explain with physics and it drives them absolutely mad.

[00:13:55]>> For us, I actually think that you should do a couple of debates or let's say discussions with people of other faiths.

[00:14:00]I think a lot of people would love to see you interact as well with >> you know I did one with Professor Jay Garfield on Buddhism.

[00:14:07]>> Really? No, but that's Buddhist. No, no one's >> No, no, but honestly, it's very pertinent if you don't mind me saying it's so pertinent.

[00:14:12]>> Okay. Where is it? Where can we find that? Is it on your channel?

[00:14:14]>> It's on my channel. Yeah. Listen, we had a discussion. Okay. The Buddhist beliefs they don't exist. There's no eye.

[00:14:20]There's no there's no persistent eye.

[00:14:23]>> You, me, Sabul, we're just dust in the wind. We're transitionary. We're we're we're we're not even how can I explain it? You know the ship of thesis.

[00:14:32]Remember we talked about the ship of thesis.

[00:14:34]>> He said the whole world basically I gave him example of ship of thesis. That's exactly right. [laughter] 100%. He said the world is the ship of thesis. We have no souls.

[00:14:42]>> Yeah.

[00:14:43]>> I said, "Professor Garfield, with all due respect, what if I hit you on the toe with a hammer?" Hm. Would you say I don't exist? If I told you, hey, that pain is just transitory. It does.

[00:14:53]There's nobody really in pain. That's your philosophy, right? Live your philosophy right now. Right now, I want you to live your philosophy. You know why? That's why I believe hell is eternal.

[00:15:00]>> Why? Because they say that if the if the pain is not eternal, oh, it's just it was just an illusion. It came and it left.

[00:15:06]What happens when pain is persistent and eternal? Then they're going to be like, "Oh, I do exist." You know, because there's a beautiful verse in the Quran.

[00:15:12]It says this, don't be like those who forgot about Allah that Allah caused them to forget about themselves. In their metaphysics, there is no God.

[00:15:20]They don't equate it. There's no the most important question. They say, "No, we don't ask that question."

[00:15:25]>> So, what do they come to the conclusion of? There is no God. There is no me. I don't even exist. That's what they say.

[00:15:31]>> Their ultimate conclusion is look, there's no suffering cuz you don't even exist, Muhammad. You don't even exist.

[00:15:36]So, who's there to suffer? That's what he's saying. Now, my my question is this. Okay, let me grab a hammer. Let me grab your toe and break your toe and then you tell me you don't exist right now [laughter] when you're in pure agony. I want to see you walk your philosophy. I want to see you talk the talk and walk the walk.

[00:15:50]>> It's an absurdity to say >> that I don't exist in a persistent sense. Well, isn't that pain persisting right now? I thought it was just an illusion that's going in and out of existence.

[00:15:59]>> I've never thought of this. You know, do [snorts] you know you know what you need to do? I think you need to have a separate ch >> I think he needs to do a saptheist class. Yeah, [laughter] but I think he actually that that definitely but I'm saying he needs to have a separate channel just for this stuff, you know.

[00:16:11]>> Yeah, >> because it's different audiences. Not everyone like it's actually way different audiences. Not everyone that's interested in like MMA and and sports and that kind of stuff is interested in this kind of stuff. And you you like I said you straddle both like at the highest level. So I think you need to have a sort of you need to have a channel just for this stuff. you do and you know really >> and what we will do is what I think we should do with you is if you want to if we we can arrange discussions and even >> on this channel to just get things started and then redirect >> no absolutely and you know just on your point uh in terms of your debate with the Buddhist professor >> did you watch it >> uh no but he just mentioned it and the point that he made about the eye and the self because that's part of their philosophy right uh they want to remove that they want to every you know life being suffering and all of these types of things. That's their way of dealing with it.

[00:17:01]>> Going back to the Dawkins article, how this is related is one of the points that he's making is that essentially the point of monism that the brain is the mind is simply the brain at work and therefore what we have in terms of consciousness uh can actually evolve in these uh sentient um things like AI because it's already happened in terms of intelligence evolving in terms of the human lineage. So I wanted to ask you a question here about something that Aristotle because you studied classical philosophy here that he was uh very familiar with and he actually exposed which is the principle of proportionate causation. If something does not have something to begin off with it cannot have that in its conclusion. So you cannot have the effect being greater than the actual cause. So if we start off with his theory of consciousness which is a physicalist theory ignore ignoring the dualist and ignoring pansychism right he's basically saying from time space matter and energy you can get an emergent property of consciousness can you explain to the viewers why that is incoherent >> okay well think about it like this okay you ever been to a baseball game where people are doing the wave you know they're all getting up >> other games yeah football game at all >> yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:15]>> You know, when the fans are getting up, you know, they're getting up and they're doing the wave.

[00:18:19]>> Well, there's no wave. There's no wetness in the stadium, but there's the illusion that there's this thing out there that's waving around like fluid.

[00:18:26]It's fluid, but the actual agents that are creating this this illusion have no fluidity to them whatsoever. It's not they're not liquid. They're solid objects that are going up and down.

[00:18:37]They're giving them the appearance of uh liquid. That's an emergent property.

[00:18:41]Okay? There's there's this is this is an emergent property. It's coming from somebody's imagination.

[00:18:46]If there was no observer, there would be no wave. There would just be people standing up and sitting down. You have to be in a particular spot and have a mind to see the emergence. So, what I'm trying to tell you is it takes consciousness to witness consciousness.

[00:19:01]It takes consciousness to see emergence.

[00:19:04]Consciousness is always the prerequisite because we've never shown any emergence without a subject. You cannot have a sub you cannot have emergence without a subject. So you cannot have consciousness without a subject. If there's consciousness in the world, there has to be a subject that's conscious. You can't just have consciousness free roaming in the world.

[00:19:24]And to witness consciousness in every in every example where we do witness emergence, it's always a conscious subject that's experiencing emergence.

[00:19:36]It's a comp it's a complex topic, but suffice it to say, nobody in the history of philosophy has ever been able to prove that consciousness emerges out of materialism. They can they can presuppose it. They can accept it as an axiom, but they can't prove it. Okay?

[00:19:52]And I'll tell you why they can't prove it. And it's it's actually quite uh difficult to wrap our minds around it.

[00:19:56]But the best guy to ever like put it in a nutshell was Berkeley. Berkeley says, "Look, think of a triangle with no color.

[00:20:04]It's impossible."

[00:20:06]>> You talk about George Berkeley here.

[00:20:07]Yeah, >> George Berkeley. He says, "Look, think of a think of a triangle with no color."

[00:20:11]Because a triangle is objective, right?

[00:20:12]It has three sides, three points, three angles.

[00:20:15]>> Try to picture it without any color.

[00:20:17]Because the color is subjective. The second you take away subjective, what's Because don't forget whatever is subjective, it's your mind casting it out into the world.

[00:20:26]>> The second you take away what's mine, there's no objectivity left.

[00:20:31]So Dawkins is trying to say look there's this material world out there. Well if we take away everything subjective from the material world there's nothing left.

[00:20:39]So we have to we have to entertain the possibility that the metaphysics that we exist in >> is consciousness is primary.

[00:20:47]It's not a byproduct of material substance.

[00:20:50]>> It's pime it's actually primary.

[00:20:54]H well this is this is a really good I really struggle to see how the physicalists can be so arrogant about their position.

[00:21:04]>> Okay. And just to make the problem a bit more uh worse for them, why don't uh you explain to the viewers about their assumption that consciousness is within the within the brain, right? Because this is one of the things that Rupert Sheldrick and other people have worked on. It's an assumption of science that actually if even if there is this emergent property of consciousness, it's here. It doesn't interact with the world, right? And this is one of those things that is just taken for granted and then a whole bunch of conclusions are inferred from it which obviously are going to be absurd because if you start with that assumption you're obviously going to be led astray. Okay, think think about this. Okay, maybe this is a different way I can explain it. Okay, imagine a circle with uh points.

[00:21:46]Is that possible?

[00:21:48]>> No.

[00:21:49]>> No, it's impossible. Right. You can't have a circle with points. You can't have a circle with sides because the essence of a circle is that it has no points or sides. Okay, perfect. Yeah.

[00:21:57]>> Now, imagine yourself in the body of the Hulk. You can do it, right? You can imagine yourself in the body of the Hulk. Yes or no?

[00:22:03]>> Yeah.

[00:22:04]>> That means you're not your body.

[00:22:06]>> Because if you couldn't imagine yourself. If you couldn't >> What's that?

[00:22:11]>> You said the Hulk. Did you say?

[00:22:12]>> Yes. The Hulk.

[00:22:14]>> I said I don't have to imagine much.

[00:22:16][laughter] >> Imagine yourself in the body of the Hulk.

[00:22:22]>> That means you didn't tamper with your essence.

[00:22:25]Let's say I tell you, okay, imagine a red circle, no problem. A green circle, no problem. A circle with sidesh that I can't do. I can't do because now you've changed the essence.

[00:22:34]>> So, what what what I found really interesting, I was me and Zisha were actually talking about this before we started this live is that there's um there's a metaphysician, a recent metaphysician called Kit Fine. Actually, I don't know if you came across him before, but he I'm really reading his books. I'm I'm um engrossing myself in his books and he's had this sort of theory of the essence. I don't know if you've heard of him uh before, but he makes this Yeah, he's he's a huge figure in metaphysics. I mean, I I hadn't read his books as much before, but then >> uh there's a few of them. Um what's it something modality something and modality? Uh so it's an important book that he wrote. It's called um >> modality.

[00:23:17]>> Yeah, modality and tense is the the name of the book. But basically he makes the exact same argument and what he says is this about essence. Um he says that with when it comes to essence the essence of a thing is that is what makes it what it is.

[00:23:33]>> Of course.

[00:23:34]>> Yeah. So for example in your case the essence of a triangle is the three-sidedness.

[00:23:40]>> Mhm.

[00:23:40]>> Okay.

[00:23:41]>> If you change the essence you've changed the thing.

[00:23:44]>> Exactly.

[00:23:44]>> If you change the essence you've changed the thing. He actually he actually postulates that essence is the most foundational thing.

[00:23:50]>> Exactly. So when I when I changed your body to the body of the Hulk.

[00:23:54]>> I didn't change your essence. So there's something to you that's not your body.

[00:23:57]That's your essence.

[00:23:59]>> You follow? But if I changed your essence, if I changed your essence, you would be like, "That's not possible."

[00:24:05]>> You would have cut me there. You would have said, "No, it's not possible." Cuz then I don't exist anymore. You've changed me.

[00:24:09]>> Okay? So if I change the color of the circle, I haven't changed the essence of the circle. It's still a circle. You accept that. The second I said this circle now has sides. You're like stop.

[00:24:18]That's not possible. It can't be a circle and have sides. You've changed its essence. You would you would refute me. You would you would object to me.

[00:24:25]What if you change the essence? You've changed the thing itself. Now I'm asking you if I change your body to the Hulk.

[00:24:30]Now your body's green and giant and I haven't changed the essence. It's possible. You entertain this. It's possible.

[00:24:36]>> So we are not our bodies.

[00:24:38]>> I know because people's bodies do change.

[00:24:40]>> Exactly.

[00:24:41]>> We are not our bodies. That's what I would tell Richard. Richard when you were a baby not a single cell left >> is here today but still you call yourself Richard Dawkins as you were you're this evolving this is a very powerful point we are not our bodies that's why me I believe in the afterlife my essence continues my essence is not uh uh known by the senses >> taste sight hearing touch smell no I there's something of me that's beyond that that's beyond so for instance look everything you know by the mind doesn't decay I know my essence by the mind or by the senses is I know it by the mind.

[00:25:15]There are two categories of things.

[00:25:17]Okay. Look, 1 plus 1 equals two. Is that true?

[00:25:19]>> Yes.

[00:25:20]>> Is it eternal?

[00:25:22]>> Yes.

[00:25:22]>> It's something you know by the mind.

[00:25:24]>> Mhm.

[00:25:25]>> I know Muhammad hijab by the mind. I saw his evolution. His body changed. He's the Hulk now. He's morphed. But he's still Muhammad hijab. Oh, it's something I know by the mind. He's part of the category of things that are eternal.

[00:25:36]>> The body is known by the senses. Things known by the senses. Is it fair to sum summarize your your point that it's actually >> an a metaphysical ontological category?

[00:25:46]So it's that's why it's not the you're trying to when you try and explain this stuff physicalist or naturalistic framework >> it it fails miserably and >> they're in a different arena.

[00:25:58]>> Yeah. And that's why they call it the hard problem.

[00:26:00]>> This is true. But the one of the things we need to keep in mind is when they use these terms they already assume dualism is false. panychism is false and the only physicalist assumption of consciousness is correct. So it's a loaded way of starting the conversation right and this is why whenever you know you have these types of people making these arguments because his argument is essentially that these things evolved and consciousness has an adaptive value right so just on this point a lot of the people that spend a lot of their time speaking about consciousness and actually trying to get to the essence of it and trying to explain it to others are the people who are not doing anything which is going to be of any adaptive value in terms to survive in reproduction. In fact, the people who think the most deeply about these types of topics are people who usually don't even have kids.

[00:26:51]>> So, if you look at it from many different angles, right, you start to find out not only is it that consciousness is a perennial problem for the materialist, it's also a problem for their naturalistic explanation.

[00:27:04]I want to uh explain to the viewers is lifelong Darwinians like Michael Roose near the end of his life on a live stream with me and William Dempseky for the first time in his life in his 80s he says he doubts materialism is true because of consciousness.

[00:27:21]So decades and decades and decades of >> I think we need what the material because because a lot of people in the chat will not know what materialism physicalism dualism I think we >> Sure. Sure. Okay. So let's sometimes it's good to go with opposites right. So we have the idea of monism. Monism is the idea that the mind is simply the brain at work. So if you if you can fully understand the brain you can fully understand the mind. Consciousness is not something immaterial. Right? So that is monism. The idea is just one. Dualism is the idea >> monism is also used in like philosophy of religion of course in the sense that it's like God is everything is >> oh yeah so so that that would be that that would be what do you call it uh pantheism right yeah [laughter] so so everything is one substance yeah so the the the dualist would say no we have a body a physical um uh thing that we can touch and feel and we can actually interact with the world and we have an immaterial soul and that immaterial soul has a relationship with the body but it is not the body. It's not reducible to the body. So that's the dualistic perspective.

[00:28:27]>> The pansy perspective which by the way roose and strangely enough some atheist philosophers now are starting to flirt with >> are b is basically saying everything is conscious in one way or another and consciousness is not something which >> consciousness.

[00:28:43]>> So consciousness is the inner subjective experience of a being. So you need a subject and it has this particular experience. So they would go as far as saying >> give an example of consciousness.

[00:28:54]>> So a conscious I would love to give you an example is >> guys I love to give you an example.

[00:28:59]Panychism is everything is conscious.

[00:29:01]Doesn't in the Quran God address the dunya and asks the do you want this challenge? Do you want the ama?

[00:29:09]>> Do you want the challenge of free will?

[00:29:14]>> What does that suggest? On the day of judgment, the the earth will speak and say um and uh declare its news of what's what's happened like it will so there is this sort of um personification >> of of these things. Yeah. The the best way to to describe idealism is life is a type of dream. This life is a type of dream. And of course in our tradition when you die you actually wake up in the real world. This life is a dream. So everything is some level of conscious consciousness. You know would say everything has some level of consciousness. It reflects some level.

[00:29:52]Human beings we reflect more. We have ability of right and wrong good and evil. But it's interesting in the Quran because the Quran dialogues with the dunya to a certain extent.

[00:30:06]>> So consciousness is paramount. I would say it's paramount because you know even the Quran says they don't consider their own selves. They don't reflect on their own selves. Well, what is there about you to reflect on? Well, I I have this point of awareness within me.

[00:30:19]>> The whole world is happening. It's a like I'm experiencing my entire world within my body. There's a there's a there's a a point of awareness. This point of awareness is very telling.

[00:30:31]That's why religion exists. If we didn't have that point of awareness, then we'd be just this physical world. There would be no need for religion. The person has this inner awareness. It's a spiritual exper life life is a spiritual experience. You're having this innate inner experience that they would love to deny. They just want you to say it's not happening because we can't explain it with physics. Physics is their god. You understand? So because their god can't compute this inner awareness, they say it doesn't exist. And there's a beautiful verse in the Quran. It says don't be like those who forgot Allah that Allah caused them to forget themselves. Because if you don't bring God into your metaphysics, there's no room for consciousness.

[00:31:10]>> The Buddhists say we don't exist. They say the most absurd thing. The one thing Decart said I can prove that's rock solid is that I exist. I have thoughts.

[00:31:18]I have to exist to have thoughts.

[00:31:19]Therefore, I must exist.

[00:31:22]>> The Buddhist says the opposite. Hey, that one thing you think you're 100% sure of, it's actually the biggest illusion. Why? They have no God in their metaphysics. If there's no God in your metaphysics, you cannot ground any type of logic, reason, or truth. Actually, I brought up to him. I said, "Look, if everything is empty, everything lacks essence, then reason lacks essence." He said, "Yes." He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, then you're making an assertion."

[00:31:46]>> Buddhism is an assertion.

[00:31:48]>> Because the Buddha went through this logical process where he realized the world doesn't exist. Well, if reason, if the if the foundation you're standing on, which is reason, is empty, has no essence, reason is just noise you make with your mouth, it's actually not true.

[00:32:01]It's there's no found there's no substance to it. He's like, "Yeah, you're right. It's Buddhism is just an assertion." He just basically just dismissed Buddhism right there.

[00:32:08]>> In fact, if there's any atheists, if you're watching this right now, and because one of the reactions to the article were was that a lot of people were saying, "You misunderstood Dawkins.

[00:32:19]Dawkins was saying something different.

[00:32:20]You're too dumb to understand what he's saying. He's too intelligent." And in essence, what they're basically doing is they're not dealing with the main critique, which is he's mystified the real issue here. If you are one of those people, be more than welcome.

[00:32:35]>> Guys, I have I have a simple question. I have a It boils down to this. Okay.

[00:32:40]>> When did matter start moving itself?

[00:32:41]That's what you got to ask any atheist.

[00:32:43]When did matter start moving itself?

[00:32:45]They have to appeal to some agency, some metaphysics.

[00:32:48]>> Well, then now you're in the world of metaphysics, guys. That's beyond physics. Metaphysics beyond physics.

[00:32:54]>> You now have to get into religion.

[00:32:56]>> Yes.

[00:32:56]>> When did we go from Isaac Newton the laws of motion? Okay. Okay, it doesn't matter he was superseded later by Einstein or what not. You guys get what I'm saying? One thing pushing another to matter moving itself. Explain to me how physics crosses that line. How do we get from physics things pushing each other around to things moving itself around?

[00:33:17]Because that's a prerequisite for you to even have science. You have to have an agent to practice science.

[00:33:24]>> How do you account for agency? Atheism cannot account for agency. It's impossible. That's the whole point of religion. We're accounting for agency.

[00:33:31]We're saying you have morality now. Yes, you can move. You're matter. You can move yourself. Don't do evil things.

[00:33:38]>> You have agency. How did we go from a cosmic sneeze to matter moving itself?

[00:33:45]Well, now you have to cross into metaphysics. It's impossible to explain it physically.

[00:33:51]They have to come into the world of metaphysics, therefore religion.

[00:33:55]>> They don't want to. So, they stay in the world of physics. They explain things in the world of physics. Well, they cannot explain it from there. They cannot explain it from that arena.

[00:34:03]>> They just don't understand.

[00:34:05]>> Absolutely.

[00:34:05]>> How does matter think about other matter, >> guys? I'm thinking I'm sitting here thinking about my gym in Montreal.

[00:34:12]>> I'm matter. I'm physics. I'm I'm uh just atoms zipping around. How come I have this thing going on about another set of matter somewhere out there in the world zipping around?

[00:34:22]>> How comes this is there's this mirror going on?

[00:34:24]>> Yeah, this problem. Yeah. You cannot explain that via physicality only. You have to bring in agency. You have to bring in personhood. These things are non-physical, guys. By the way, they're non-physical. All the atheists out there, the materialist philosophers, you have to come into the world of metaphysics. Well, now you're practicing religion. There's just no way around it.

[00:34:42]That's why the Buddhist says, "Look, there's nothing on inside. There is no person." They just deny it. That's why you could take away everything from me.

[00:34:48]I can have a disease. I don't care. I'm nothing. I don't exist. They deny the most pressing evident thing of the human experience. They have to deny it.

[00:34:59]>> That's why I say, "Let me take a hammer to your toe. I want to see you deny that." They never, you know, you know what he told me? You know what he told me? He's like, "Well, you could do meditations that >> guys, I'm from the world of pain of and suffering. I'm from the world of hitting each other." Okay? There's nobody out there who can get hit in the body, punch. And he just meditates his way out of it. They believe me, physics is a real thing. Pain is a real thing. First person experience is a real thing.

[00:35:20]Anybody I would love to take one of these guys and hang him off a airplane.

[00:35:23]Take him off. Take him 10,000 feet in the sky and tell me tell me you don't exist right now. Tell me when I hang you by a thread now that off this airplane you don't exist. He's gonna squeal. He's the Quran says it beautifully. When they're on the ships and the seas get angry and the seas all of a sudden they become religious. Yes, it's true. It's true. I do exist. Allah, you are the one and you have my And then when they get to the shore, oh, we lost our minds there for a second.

[00:35:41]>> And for us, I've always said there's no feminists on the battlefield. There's no feminist on the battleist on the planes.

[00:35:47]>> There's no on a [laughter] falling plane. Falling planes don't have any atheists and battle.

[00:35:51]>> They don't have they all get religious.

[00:35:52]They all get deeply religious.

[00:35:54]>> These are these are the things that we we're going to be.