Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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Emerson Green walks through three powerful objections to attempts to reduce consciousness to the brain: phenomenal transparency, philosophical zombies, and vagueness.

Emerson's YouTube channel: @EmersonGreen

This interview is also available as a podcast: open.substack.com/pub/mileskdonahue/p/67-is-consciousness-physical-emerson?r=1pf1v9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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Twitter: twitter.com/PhilosopherMKD

EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:05 What are you a YouTuber?
00:19:08 Objection #1 - Phenomenal transparency
00:29:22 Why physicalism cannot tolerate transparency
00:32:31 What if consciousness is translucent?
00:38:36 Maybe there are no mental states at all
00:49:52 Objection #2 - Philosophical zombies
01:00:57 Different types of conceivability
01:12:29 What about modal skepticism?
01:17:32 Objection #3 - Vagueness
01:24:40 When do we go from non-conscious to conscious?