Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes: What is Exogenous Mind Theory? Metaphysics, Psychedelics, & Mind At Large
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
If you're interested in consciousness, if you're interested in philosophy of mind, why not explore that whole amazing cosmos of different forms of experience? Forms of experience which, you know, you can't really explain. If certain psychedelic-induced mystical experiences are ineffable, if you can't put them into words and you can't report them, then you can't get a neural corollary to them either. Let's say that you did further tests to determine whether certain psychedelics decrease brain activity whilst... the report was of intense, rich experience, ordered experience. That would be a fascinating finding, wouldn't it? That would actually be a way of empirically getting into metaphysics. And it's psychedelics that would allow for such tests because it temporarily changes functioning of normal prosaic brain functioning.
So yeah, there's a lot of interesting things yet to discover.
Peter, if you had to give me a philosophical history of the mind-body problem, What would you tell me? What story would you craft? And which historical figures come to mind when you think of the story?
Well, I suppose a traditional story that Schopenhauer tells is from Descartes. I mean, Descartes seems to think that You know, with him, the whole problem about essentially upward causation, downward causation begins in their interaction. But of course, you know, in the West, we see notions of the mind, of course, in the classic philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, of course, you know, with regard to, you know, the soul, the forms, teleology, whatnot. What story would I tell? I still like to tell the Cartesian story, to be honest, because I think that because I quite I take quite radical views of the mind. I would maybe less radical these days, but I like to always go into the sort of modern history as to why people think that's radical, why they think it's strange and whatever.
So I like to go, yeah, take that Cartesian route of the classic Cartesian dualism. But then I also like the history of idealism, you know, which is kind of lost, I think, to a certain extent, especially British idealism or absolute idealism. I was just reading a text on it the other day, and it said that for many reasons, but partly because of the war, the Great War, There was a big antagonism towards against Germany and against nationalism. And as a result, that kind of German based idealism, which became heavily prominent in Britain, was kind of was kind of left alone. So you get this history of philosophy from Mill to Russell and you skip like 50 years. in the late sort of 19th, early 20th century.
So I always like to go through that. British idealism basically came out of Hegel mostly, you know, starting with Green, ending with F.H. Bradley. And then, you know, from F.H. Bradley's appearance in reality, 1893, as a kind of advance of that, you get Whitehead's philosophy, Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy. I mean, he called his main book Process and Reality because it came out of, you know, based on Bradley's appearance in reality. It was seen as a sort of realist advance on that idealism, although Bradley himself didn't know whether he was a realist or idealist. But anyway, so to understand Whitehead, it's good to look at, you know, to understand Bradley, really. And to understand Bradley, you know, you go through the British idealist, absolute idealist, and then you realise, well, you've really got to know Hegel a bit.
And then if you, to understand Hegel, Kant, Kant, Leibniz, Wolf, and so on, then you go back to where it all began, essentially with the ancient Greeks. So, yeah, but my own particular interests, I would say at the moment, at least lie around that kind of lost history of absolute idealism, which is kind of predominant philosophy in the English speaking world for 50 years.
I'm glad you brought up idealism because when I read your work and when I explore it, a big part of me thought about why you're not an idealist instead of a panpsychist. So do you want to touch on that?
Sure. Funnily enough, I'm currently writing a review of Bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism, his latest book.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:23
2
What is the historical story behind the mind‑body problem?
4:23–19:08
3
How does Peter define consciousness and its different contents?
19:08–31:43
4
Why does Peter favor a fusion of Spinoza and Whitehead over pure idealism?
31:43–57:46
5
What is the philosophy of psychedelics and how is it defined?
57:46–1:15:02
6
How do psychedelic experiences shift people’s metaphysical views?
1:15:02–1:39:08
7
What is Exogenous Mind Theory and why was it named that?
1:39:08–1:41:56
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Mind-Body Solution with Dr Tevin Naidu
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Does Consciousness Require a Subject? The Self, Agency & AI Limitations | Kevin Mitchell
What is Ultimately Real? Consciousness, Free Energy & Spacetime | Donald Hoffman & Karl Friston
Neuroscience Beyond Neurons in the Diverse Intelligence Era | Michael Levin & Robert Chis-Ciure