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

<p>🧠 JOIN THE GIANT&#39;S SHOULDER FAMILY</p><p>Become a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/join</p><p><br></p><p>Richard 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&#39;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.</p><p><br></p><p>Expect to learn:</p><p>- The blank mind&#39;s eye: what a philosopher with no mental imagery reveals about where experience actually happens</p><p>- Fear without the amygdala: how he and Joseph LeDoux moved the feeling of fear up into the cortex</p><p>- Fake phenomenology: the TMS study where vision gets more vivid without getting any more accurate</p><p>- Experience you can&#39;t reach: whether you can be having a conscious state and be locked out of it</p><p>- The state of the field: why the consciousness chapter in most neuroscience textbooks is a coin flip</p><p><br></p><p>SPONSORS</p><p>Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqe</p><p><br></p><p>GS EPISODES MENTIONED</p><p>Joseph LeDoux - Meet The World&#39;s Greatest Emotion Neuroscientist You&#39;ve Never Heard Of: https://youtu.be/u_yCcxQsKn0</p><p><br></p><p>Andrés Gómez Emilsson - Consciousness Expert Explains The 6 Levels Of The DMT Experience: https://youtu.be/xMdl7zF2MWE</p><p><br></p><p>Alfredo Spagna - Meet The Neuroscientist Proving We Got Imagination &amp; Aphantasia WRONG!: https://youtu.be/k8SBHefDnEk</p><p><br></p><p>GUEST LINKS</p><p>Personal Site: https://onemorebrown.com</p><p>Consciousness Live!: https://onemorebrown.com/consciousness-live/</p><p>Consciousness as Representing One&#39;s Mind (OUP, 2025): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/consciousness-as-representing-ones-mind-9780197784006</p><p>X: https://x.com/onemorebrown</p><p>Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/onemorebrown.bsky.social</p><p><br></p><p>LISTEN ON</p><p>YouTube - https://youtu.be/RBP-w5Z9t1g</p><p>Apple