Online research in philosophy

Commentators are divided between those who welcome and creatively extend the agenda of Lifelines and those who defend what it criticises. My response covers style; history, politics, and ethics; concepts of freedom, active organisms, and determinism; the uses of metaphor; reductionism and levels of analysis; Darwin and Darwinists; heritability and intelligence; human universals and biological determinism.

Abstract The language of consciousness and that of brain function seem vastly different and incommensurable ways of approaching human mental life. If we look at what we mean by consciousness we find that it has a great deal to do with the sensitivity and responsiveness shown by a subject toward things that happen. Philosophically, we can understnd ascriptions of consciousness best by looking at the conditions which make it true for thinkers who share the concept to say that one of them is conscious. This depends on consciousness being manifest. When we also note that manifest, flexible and exploratory responses to one's environment are the basis of concept use, an a priori link between concepts and consciousness is forged. The brain structures subserving such responses are complex but crucially involve the multi?tracked and cross?linked information processing to be found in the neocortex. This function draws on the motivational and orienting activity arising in lower brain systems but orchestrates that into an articulated structure of behaviour control. The conclusion is that human consciousness is an umbrella term for complex and animated mental activity which makes extensive use of many different perceptual systems and also of the social milieu within which human cognition develops.

Rose presents an important critique of the determinism and reductionism of modern biology. However, such trends are probably temporary aberrations in the development of science. Another form of determinism which has deeper roots is emerging from modern studies of brain dynamics. To reconcile this evidence with the concept of a “person” will require more radical rethinking of our received notion of natural law.

Machine generated contents note: -- 1. Quantum Mechanics as a General Framework -- 2. Classical and Quantum Information and Entropy -- 3. The Brain: An Outlook -- 4. Vision -- 5. Dealing with Target's Motion and Our Own Movement -- 6. Complexity: A Necessary Condition -- 7. General Features of Life -- 8. The Organism as a Semiotic and Cybernetic System -- 9. Phylogeny -- 10. Ontogeny -- 11. Epigeny -- 12. Representational Semiotics -- 13. The Brain as an Information-Control System -- 14. Decisional, Emotional and Cognitive Systems -- 15. Behavior -- 16. Learning -- 17. Memory -- 18. The Basic Symbolic Systems -- 19. What Symbols Are -- 20. Intentionality and Conceptualization -- 21. Consciousness -- 22. Development and Culture -- 23. Language -- 24. Mind and Brain (Body) -- 25. Final Philosophical Remarks.

This monograph explains in terms of specified neuronal brain mechanisms and systems, how the human brain does its cognitive work. It elucidates functions such as declarative and episodic learning, imagery, spatial representation, object recognition, semantic processing, narrative comprehension, planning, and motivation. Neurophysiological, psychological, and clinical findings are presented in support of the theoretical model, and a variety of computer simulation tests demonstrate its competence.

The connection between a mind and a brain is fundamental to the Philosophy of Mind, partly because it is often taken to include the the problem of the nature of a mind -- or, more particularly, the nature of consciousness. What follows here is an inquiry into this connection. It surveys the traditional and still orthodox answers. It is Ch. 2 of Ted Honderich's large work A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience and Life- Hopes -- which chapter is also Ch. 2 of the paperback Mind and Brain.

According to an influential view, one function of mirror neurons (MNs), first discovered in the brain of monkeys, is to underlie third-person mindreading. This view relies on two assumptions: the activity of MNs in an observer’s brain matches (simulates or resonates with) that of MNs in an agent’s brain and this resonance process retrodictively generates a representation of the agent’s intention from a perception of her movement. In this paper, I criticize both assumptions and I argue instead that the activity of MNs in an observer’s brain is enhanced by a prior representation of the agent’s intention and that their task is to predictively compute the best motor command suitable to satisfy the agent’s intention.

Introduction -- The mischievous neuron -- The shadow of determinism -- The essential freedom -- A tempest in the brain -- Neurological disturbance -- The seat of the will -- The somatic-marker hypothesis -- The readiness potential -- The grand illusion -- Neuronal destiny -- The revolution of the brain -- Seeds of corruption -- Morality's end -- The depths of consciousness -- A challenge for experience -- The boundlessness of reason -- Rise of the moral agent -- The palace of the mind.