#157 - Meet The Consciousness Philosopher With No Mind’s Eye

🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinRichard Brown is a philosopher of mind who built one of the leading cognitive theories of consciousness, co-authored the paper with Joseph LeDoux that moved the feeling of fear out of the amygdala, and has just published the full book-length case for it with Oxford University Press. He also cannot picture a chicken. Brown has aphantasia — no voluntary mental imagery whatsoever — and he didn't find out until a graduate seminar, when he realised that everyone around him had been speaking literally all along about seeing things in their heads. This is a man building a theory of inner experience from inside a mind with no pictures in it.Expect to learn:- The blank mind's eye: what a philosopher with no mental imagery reveals about where experience actually happens- Fear without the amygdala: how he and Joseph LeDoux moved the feeling of fear up into the cortex- Fake phenomenology: the TMS study where vision gets more vivid without getting any more accurate- Experience you can't reach: whether you can be having a conscious state and be locked out of it- The state of the field: why the consciousness chapter in most neuroscience textbooks is a coin flipSPONSORSGet One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeGS EPISODES MENTIONEDJoseph LeDoux - Meet The World's Greatest Emotion Neuroscientist You've Never Heard Of: https://youtu.be/u_yCcxQsKn0Andrés Gómez Emilsson - Consciousness Expert Explains The 6 Levels Of The DMT Experience: https://youtu.be/xMdl7zF2MWEAlfredo Spagna - Meet The Neuroscientist Proving We Got Imagination & Aphantasia WRONG!: https://youtu.be/k8SBHefDnEkGUEST LINKSPersonal Site: https://onemorebrown.comConsciousness Live!: https://onemorebrown.com/consciousness-live/Consciousness as Representing One's Mind (OUP, 2025): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/consciousness-as-representing-ones-mind-9780197784006X: https://x.com/onemorebrownBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/onemorebrown.bsky.socialLISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/RBP-w5Z9t1gApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:10 Why You Can't Do Science Without Philosophy0:04:54 "You're Doing Bad Philosophy and You Don't Know It"0:06:26 The Band That Got Him Working With Joseph LeDoux0:11:53 Why the Consciousness Chapter Is a Coin Flip0:17:17 What a Higher-Order Theory Actually Says0:20:43 The Two Kinds of Awareness0:21:59 The Blurry Book That Taught Him About Experience0:26:32 Consciousness as Awareness of Your Own Mind0:27:08 LeDoux, the Amygdala and Where Fear Really Lives0:33:06 "There Is No Unconscious Fear"0:39:17 Two Famous Theories That Are Secretly the Same0:40:15 Aphantasia as Evidence for Higher-Order Theory0:42:57 The Speckled Hen That Broke the Seminar0:44:48 Seven Spots, or Black on Black?0:45:46 What Meditation Showed a Man With No Mind's Eye0:49:38 You Might Be Having Experiences You Can't Reach0:52:21 Ned Block's Overflow and the "Placeholder" Problem0:55:36 India Solved This Before Descartes1:02:26 Subjective Inflation, or "Fake Phenomenology"1:03:38 Zapping the Prefrontal Cortex With TMS1:06:13 The $3 Million Experiment Testing All of This1:09:56 Quality Space Theory and Mental "Dabs of Paint"1:22:08 Why You Can't Swap Your Red for My Green.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com