What Is Consciousness? (video)
A Conversation between Aydin Areta and Arshia Geramizadegan
Part Two, Part One (1–2)
Aydin Areta's response: Against Mind–Matter Dualism and the Emergence of Consciousness from the Brain

The second part of the series “What Is Consciousness?”, a conversation between Dr Arshia Geramizadegan and me concerning materialism and the view that the brain produces human consciousness and that mind is nothing more than the result of brain processes, is offered to friends and interested viewers in two parts.

The first instalment of Part Two, entitled “Against Mind–Matter Dualism and the Emergence of Consciousness from the Brain,” critiques a group of theories that regard Mind and Consciousness as direct products of brain processes.

Looking broadly at current theories concerning the emergence of human awareness/consciousness, one can probably distinguish four principal approaches within science and the Philosophy of mind. These theories will gradually be examined across the conversations between Dr Gerami and me:
1) Substance Dualism;
2) Material monism / Idealism;
3) Mysterianism, meaning acceptance that the problem of understanding consciousness may be insoluble;
4) Sir Roger Penrose's quantum theory.

The second instalment of Part Two, which will be offered to friends in the coming days, will focus specifically on hard materialism and Material Monism, which in principle reject the existence of anything called mind as an independent reality.

At the end of these two instalments, my initial examination and preliminary criticisms of scientific materialism will be complete. Part Three, to be presented in the coming weeks, will contain Dr Gerami's views on the issues raised in Part Two.

Aydin Areta