Online research in philosophy

Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel’s groundbreaking book, Describing Inner Experience: Proponent Meets Skeptic, examines a research method called Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES). DES, which was developed by Hurlburt and collaborators, works roughly as follows. An investigator gives a subject a random beeper. During the day, as the subject hears a beep, she writes a description of her conscious experience just before the beep. The next day, the investigator interviews the subject, asks for more details, corrects any apparent mistakes made by the subject, (...) and draws conclusions about the subject’s mind. Throughout the book, Schwitzgebel challenges some of Hurlburt’s specific conclusions. Yet both agree – and so do I – that DES is a worthy method. (shrink)

The relation of dependency between consciousness and attention is, once again, a matter of heated debate among scientists and philosophers. There are at least three general views on the issue. First, there are those who suggest that attention is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness (e.g. Posner, 1994; Prinz, 2000, forthcoming). Second, there are those who suggest that even though attention is necessary for consciousness, it may not be sufficient (e.g. Moran & Desimone, 1984; Rensink et al., 1997; Merikle & (...) (...) Joordens, 1997). Finally, there are those who suggest that attention is neither necessary nor sufficient for consciousness, that—at most—they are two different processes that happen to be concomitant some of the time, but which, under very specific circumstances, can be shown to come apart (e.g. Lamme, 2003; Koivisto et al., 2005; Koch & Tsuchiya, 2007). Piles of evidence have been marshaled in favor and against each of these alternatives, and as far as I can see, there is no hope of agreement on the horizon. (shrink)

It has been widely thought that consciousness has no causal efficacy in the physical world. However, this may be not the case. In this paper, we show that a conscious being can distinguish definite perceptions and their quantum superpositions, while a physical measuring system without consciousness cannot distinguish such nonorthogonal quantum states. The possible existence of this distinct quantum physical effect of consciousness may have interesting implications for the science of consciousness. In particular, it suggests that consciousness is not emergent (...) but a fundamental feature of the universe. This may provide a possible quantum basis for panpsychism. (shrink)

The mind-body problem arises because all theories about mind-brain connections are too deeply obscure to gain general acceptance. This essay suggests a clear, simple, mind-brain solution that avoids all these perennial obscurities. (1) It does so, first of all, by reworking Strawson and Stoljar’s views. They argue that while minds differ from observable brains, minds can still be what brains are physically like behind the appearances created by our outer senses. This could avoid many obscurities. But to clearly do so, (...) it must first clear up its own deep obscurity about what brains are like behind appearances, and how they create the mind’s privacy, unity and qualia – all of which observable brains lack. (2) This can ultimately be done with a clear, simple assumption: our consciousness is the physical substance that certain brain events consist of beyond appearances. For example, the distinctive electrochemistry in nociceptor ion channels wholly consists of pain. This rejects that pain is a brain property: instead it’s a brain substance that occupies space in brains, and exerts forces by which it’s indirectly detectable via EEGs. (3) This assumption is justified because treating pains as physical substances avoids the perennial obscurities in mind-body theories. For example, this ‘clear physicalism’ avoids the obscure nonphysical pain of dualism and its spinoffs. Pain is instead an electrochemical substance. It isn’t private because it’s hidden in nonphysical minds, but instead because it’s just indirectly detected in the physical world in ways that leave its real nature hidden. (4) Clear physicalism also avoids puzzling reductions of private pains into more fundamental terms of observable brain activity. Instead pain is a hidden, private substance underlying this observable activity. Also, pain is fundamental in itself, for it’s what some brain activity fundamentally consists of. This also avoids reductive idealist claims that the world just exists in the mind. They yield obscure views on why we see a world that isn’t really out there. (5) Clear physicalism also avoids obscure claims that pain is information processing which is realizable in multiple hardwares (not just in electrochemistry). Molecular neuroscience now casts doubt on multiple realization. Also, it’s puzzling how abstract information gets ‘realized’ in brains and affects brains (compare ancient quandries on how universals get embodied in matter). A related idea is that of supervenient properties in nonreductive physicalism. They involve obscure overdetermination and emergent consciousness. Clear physicalism avoids all this. Pain isn’t an abstract property obscurely related to brains – it’s simply a substance in brains. (6) Clear physicalism also avoids problems in neuroscience. Neuroscience explains the mind’s unity in problematic ways using synchrony, attention, etc.. Clear physicalism explains unity in terms of intense neuroelectrical activity reaching continually along brain circuits as a conscious whole. This fits evidence that just highly active, highly connected circuits are fully conscious. Neuroscience also has problems explaining how qualia are actually encoded by brains, and how to get from these abstract codes to actual pain, fear, etc.. Clear physicalism explains qualia electrochemically, using growing evidence that both sensory and emotional qualia correlate with very specific electrical channels in neural receptors. Multiple-realization advocates overlook this important evidence. (7) Clear physicalism thus bridges the mind-brain gulf by showing how brains can possess the mind’s qualia, unity and privacy – and how minds can possess features of brain activity like occupying space and exerting forces. This unorthodox nonreductive physicalism may be where physicalism leads to when stripped of all its reductive and nonreductive obscurities. It offers a clear, simple mind-body solution by just filling in what neuroscience is silent about, namely, what brain matter is like behind perceptions of it. (shrink)

Introducing non-Darwinian mind as a nonaptation (raw materials of evolution) I argue that
Darwinian mind evolved from non-Darwinian mind through the evolution of desire and
aversion. The subject position within Darwinian mind is Darwinian self and is inherently selfish.
However the cathexis whereby the subject prioritises motivations of desire and aversion is not
an inherent property of mind. Instead it is proposed to be an adaptation, a predisposition to
respond to pleasant/unpleasant sensations with desire/aversion. This explains why self-sacrifice
and disengagement from desire/aversion are the sine qua (...) non of serious commitment to the
spiritual path, i.e. Darwinian self and desire/aversion are two sides of the same coin and erosion
of one is erosion of the other. Thus, through self-renunciation and suspension of desire/aversion
the seeker passes from adaptive selfish Darwinian mind towards nonaptive selfless non-
Darwinian mind. But Darwinian mind automatically resists this transcendence by intensifying
motivations of desire/aversion thereby explaining the extreme difficulties of the spiritual path. A
theoretical distinction is made between evolved Darwinian “morality” (self-serving
“unselfishness”), “Darwinian” morality (genuine unselfishness) and amoral non-Darwinian
kenosis (selflessness). These distinctions make it easy to disentangle scientific and religious
jurisdictions on morality with important implications for both religious ethics and science’s
view of spirituality. All in all, the nonaptive theory of spiritual mind offers a unified solution to
age-old problems which have been uncomfortably shifting this way and that in the interstices
between biology, psychology, theology and philosophy. (shrink)

Heterophenomenology is a third-person methodology proposed by Daniel Dennett for using first-person reports as scientific evidence. I argue that heterophenomenology can be improved by making six changes: (i) setting aside consciousness, (ii) including other sources of first-person data besides first-person reports, (iii) abandoning agnosticism as to the truth value of the reports in favor of the most plausible assumptions we can make about what can be learned from the data, (iv) interpreting first-person reports (and other first-person behaviors) directly in terms (...) of target mental states rather than in terms of beliefs about them, (v) dropping any residual commitment to incorrigibility of first-person reports, and (vi) recognizing that thirdperson methodology does have positive effects on scientific practices. When these changes are made, heterophenomenology turns into the self-measurement methodology of firstperson data that I have defended in previous papers. (shrink)

There is at least one element in Strawson.