Philosophy of Consciousness

The persistent interpretation problem for quantum mechanics may indicate an unwillingness to consider unpalatable assumptions that could open the way toward progress. With this in mind, I focus on the work of David Bohm, whose earlier work has been more influential than that of his later. As I’ll discuss, I believe two assumptions play a strong role in explaining the disparity: 1) that theories in physics must be grounded in mathematical structure and 2) that consciousness must supervene on material processes. (...) I’ll argue that the first assumption appears to lead us toward Everett’s many worlds interpretation, which suggests a red flag. I’ll also argue that the second assumption is suspect due to the persistent explanatory gap for consciousness. Later, I explore ways that Bohm’s later work holds some promise in providing a better fit with our world, both phenomenologically and empirically. Also, I’ll address the possible problem of realism. (shrink)

The assertion by Yu and Nikolic that the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment of Kim et al. empirically falsifies the consciousness-causes-collapse hypothesis of quantum mechanics is based on the unfounded and false assumption that the failure of a quantum wave function to collapse implies the appearance of a visible interference pattern.

Conscious experiences are characterized by mental qualities, such as those involved in seeing red, feeling pain, or smelling cinnamon. The standard framework for modeling mental qualities represents them via points in multidimensional spaces, where distances between points inversely correspond to degrees of phenomenal similarity. This paper argues that the standard framework is structurally inadequate and develops a new framework that is more powerful and flexible. The core problem for the standard framework is that it cannot capture precision structure: for example, (...) consider the phenomenal contrast between seeing an object as crimson in foveal vision versus merely as red in peripheral vision. The solution I favor is to model mental qualities using regions, rather than points. I explain how this seemingly simple formal innovation not only provides a natural way of modeling precision, but also yields a variety of further theoretical fruits: it enables us to formulate novel hypotheses about the space and structures of mental qualities, formally differentiate two dimensions of phenomenal similarity, generate a quantitative model of the phenomenal sorites, and deploy a new theoretical tool in the empirical investigation of consciousness. A noteworthy consequence of my new framework is that the structure of the mental qualities of conscious experiences is fundamentally different from the structure of the perceptible qualities of external objects. (shrink)

Russian abstract: В данном сборнике статей раскрывается формирование структурно-онтологического представления о таком явлении, как городское пространство. Наряду с соответствующей концептуализацией, также представлено и объяснено определение городского сообщества. Обоснована логика классификации городских сообществ. А также проанализированы факторы, обуславливающие их устойчивость. -/- English abstract: This collection of articles reveals the formation of a structural-ontological concept of such a phenomenon as urban space. Along with relevant conceptualization, the definition of an urban community is also presented and explained. The logic of classification of urban (...) communities is substantiated. And also analyzed the factors that determine their stability. (shrink)

Russian Abstract: Данный документ является сборником «заметок на полях», раскрывающих состав и содержание метода структурно-онтологического анализа. Указанный метод разработан для системного описания предметной области изучаемых явлений. Он включает специальную процедуру по построению структурно-онтологических матриц и алгоритм их описания. Междисциплинарная направленность метода продемонстрирована на примере анализа процесса социализации личности. English Abstract: This document is a collection of `marginal notes` revealing the composition and content of the structural ontological analysis method. The specified method is developed for a systemic description of the subject (...) matter area of the studied phenomena. It includes a special procedure for constructing structural-ontological matrices and an algorithm for their description. The interdisciplinary focus of the method is demonstrated by the example of an analysis of the personality socialization process. (shrink)

What we've considered so far about the epistemology of human sciences comes up again as to the concept of "destiny''and human free will: who "must" tell us if we are destined or not? Either Neuroscientists or sociologists? Either Philosophers or biochemists? Has psychology anything to say? Do we need a pool to gather them all? Many other questions come up: what determines us and how much? ls there any sense in talking about destiny? We are a complex system and our (...) conscience is an epiphenomenon of a unitary hierarchical system: would this exclude any possibility of choice? And what does "free choice" mean? And what about the consequences on the ethics? Being Jung and Pauli’s thought a reference point, might we outline a comprehensive reading as regards such problems, even thinking of a sort of quantum psychoid free will? (shrink)

Krishnachandra's re-articulation of Kant's transcendental system challenges Kant's conceptualization of 'apperceptive self' conceived as a logical function which is as well the precondition of all our knowledge claims. In Kant's framework, though this "unity of consciousness" is projected as a principle, which undertakes a foundational role as 'apperceptive I', it is capacitated with merely a logical function. Krishnachandra disagrees with Kant's reduction of function of the "self" to a logical process. This reduction would render knowledge of the "self" to be (...) an inferential knowledge, thus making this derivation analogous to the proofs of the transcendental conditions of understanding and sensibility through the logical process of deductions. Krishnachandra's question is: whether this equation established between logical function of 'apperception' and the "self" will suffice to establish the "certitude" of knowledge claims. This is the first task Krishnachandra addresses in his work, Studies in Kant which is elucidated in the following section of this paper. Further, we will see how Krishnachandra’s exploration into the dynamics of this problem leads him to alternatively foreground the "unity", which is much sought by Kantian scholars, between the theoretical and the practical domains of Reason. (shrink)

Review of Jean Moritz Müller, The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling.

Non-reductivists about phenomenal consciousness believe that physical facts are insufficient to ground the existence of phenomenal consciousness. It will be argued that if one is going to be a non-reductivist, then one should not limit oneself to expanding one’s catalogue of the world’s basic features, as recommended in the paradigmatic non-reductivist approach developed by David Chalmers. One should rather take a realist stance towards subjectivity. A realist about subjectivity thinks that at least some of the propositions needed to state how (...) things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing ‘from one subject to another’. Realism about subjectivity will be introduced by means of an analogy with the so called ‘A-theory’ of time. An A-theorist claims that at least some of the propositions needed to state how things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing ‘from one time to another’. It turns out that a robust notion of metaphysical reality is necessary to make sense of both realism about subjectivity and the A-theories of time. (shrink)

This article explores the psychological dimension of classical Sāṃkhya philosophy, on the basis of its canonical treatise, Sāṃkhyakārikā of Īśvarakṛṣṇa (4th Century AD). The strong dualism defended by this ancient metaphysics establishes a division between what we will designate as the phenomenon of consciousness (puruṣa) and the cognitive phenomena (prakṛti). According to our approach, Sāṃkhya seems to offer a mechanical model of mind by means of an introspective self-research. In fact, we will argue that in this system of thought, mind (...) is regarded as an artificial extension of consciousness. Considering the Sāṃkhya classical treatise as the report of a meditative experience, our main purpose is to examine some key points of this dualism. To this end, we also take account of certain Western theories of mind, as well as certain aspects included in another Indian philosophy greatly influenced by the Sāṃkhya system, namely, the classical Yoga of Patañjali. (shrink)

One of the most pressing questions concerning singular demonstrative mental contents is what makes their content singular: that is to say, what makes it the case that individual objects are the representata of these mental states. Many philosophers have required sophisticated intellectual capacities for singular content to be possible, such as the possession of an elaborate scheme of space and time. A more recent reaction to this strategy proposes to account for singular content solely on the basis of empirical models (...) of visual processing. We believe both sides make good points, and offer an intermediate way of looking into singular content. Our suggestion is that singular content may be traced to psychological capacities to form flexible, abstract representations in the prefrontal cortex. This allows them to be sustained for increasingly longer periods of time and extrapolated beyond the context of perception, thus going beyond lowlevel sensory representations while also falling short of more sophisticated intellectual abilities. (shrink)

In this introductory work, Mind and Brain: A Dialogue on the Mind-Body Problem, 2nd edition, Gennaro updates and expands the work to reflect current topics and discussions. The dialogue provides a clear and compelling overview of the mind-body problem suitable for both introductory students and those who have some background in the philosophy of mind. Topics include: Immortality, Materialism, Descartes' "Divisibility Argument" for substance dualism, The "Argument from Introspection" for substance dualism, The main objections to dualism, The interaction between mind (...) and brain, The relation between brain damage and the prospect of an afterlife, Parallelism and epiphenomenalism, The type/token distinction within materialism and the problem of multiple realizability, Arguments against materialism and its ability to explain consciousness, Property dualism and panpsychism, The epistemological problem of other minds, The nature of inductive knowledge, Evidence for animal consciousness, The problem of machine or robot minds, The inverted spectrum argument. Also included are a brief Introduction, a list of Study Questions designed to enhance classroom discussion and serve as a resource for the development of paper topics, a Glossary, and an Index of Key Terms. (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy of mind stirs up the disputes about the nature of body-mind relations with its rigorous and naturalistic monism. The unity of body and mind is consequential of his metaphysics of the substance, but the concept of the unity of the mind and its idea rightfully confuses Spinoza’s commentators. Many have been tempted to interpret this as a possible account of consciousness, but it still has not yet been fully understood. This paper attempts to introduce an interpretation of (...) the concept of ideas of ideas with regards to consciousness based on strict ontological monism, conceptual dualism, and self-similarity architecture, which concludes in distinguishing mental and psychic reality. While we might attribute mental reality, or mentality, to every extended thing, psychic reality is constituted by conscious ideas. And it seems to follow from Spinoza’s theory that the more ‘psychic’ the mind is, the more it knows God. (shrink)

In the target article, Iain McGilchrist draws upon his work, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (=ME), to develop the relevance of its central claims to religion. Here and elsewhere McGilchrist contends, contrary to some critics, that his construal of the divided brain hypothesis (=DBH) does not make the fundamental philosophical error which is known as the homunculus fallacy. The critics’ charge is this: McGilchrist’s DBH purports to explain certain psychological features (...) of human persons by providing an explanation that is in fact a pseudo-explanation. It is a pseudo-explanation because the DBH’s explanation of these psychological phenomena merely reintroduces the same psychological phenomena as explanatory factors that belong to the two different hemispheres of the brain. This article addresses whether McGilchrist’s position is in fact innocent of the charge of the homunculus fallacy. It is one thing to recognize the principle of contradiction and aim to avoid contradictions, it is another thing to avoid actually contradicting oneself. I show that McGilchrist consistently violates the homunculus fallacy despite his consistent claims to the contrary. I then argue that it is impossible for McGilchrist to articulate the central thesis of ME, namely, DBH, without violating the homunculus fallacy. Indeed, McGilchrist’s DBH requires that the error identified by the homunculus fallacy is not a fallacy at all, but is a deep insight crucial to understanding the making of the western world. Let us begin with the homunculus fallacy. (shrink)

This paper offers a phenomenological interpretation of Brentano’s view of mentality. The key idea is that mental phenomena are not only characterized by intentionality; they also exhibit a distinctive way of appearing or being experienced. In short, they also have a distinctive phenomenology. I argue this view may be traced back to Brentano’s theory of inner perception. Challenging the self-representational reading of IP, I maintain the latter is best understood as a way of appearing, that is, in phenomenological terms. Section (...) 1 addresses Brentano’s claim that IP is one mark of the mental alongside intentionality. Sections 2 and 3 present support for a phenomenological interpretation of IP. And Section 4 briefly discusses two objections. (shrink)

According to Husserl’s phenomenology, the intentional horizon is a general structure of experience. However, its characterisation beyond perceptual experience has not been explored yet. This paper aims, first, to fill this gap by arguing that there is a viable notion of cognitive horizon that presents features that are analogous to features of the perceptual horizon. Secondly, it proposes to characterise a specific structure of the cognitive horizon—that which presents possibilities for action—as a cognitive affordance. Cognitive affordances present cognitive elements as (...) opportunities for mental action (i.e., a problem affording trying to solve it, a thought affording calculating, an idea affording reflection). Thirdly, it argues that postulating cognitive affordances helps to unfold a rational dimension of thinking by conceiving of them as motivating reasons for action, something that in turn provides an argument for the experienced character of cognitive affordances. (shrink)

Публикация (#15) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Philosophers have long been fascinated by the stream of consciousness––thoughts, images, and bits of inner speech that dance across the inner stage. Yet for centuries, such “mind-wandering” was deemed private and thus resistant to empirical investigation. Recent developments in psychology and neuroscience have reinvigorated scientific interest in the stream of thought, leading some researchers to dub this “the era of the wandering mind”. Despite this flurry of progress, scientists have stressed that mind-wandering research requires firmer philosophical foundations. The time is (...) therefore ripe for the philosophy of mind-wandering. Our review begins with a foundational question: what is mind-wandering? We then investigate the significance of mind-wandering for general philosophical topics, namely mental action, introspection, and the norms of thinking and attention. (shrink)

Публикация (#14) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Proponents of the hard problem of consciousness argue that the zombie and inverted spectrum thought experiments demonstrate that consciousness cannot be physical. They present scenarios designed to demonstrate that it is conceivable that a physical replica of someone can have radically different or no conscious experiences, that such an experience-less replica is possible and therefore that materialism is false. I will argue that once one understands the limitations that the physics of this world puts on cognitive systems, zombies and the (...) inverted spectrum are not conceivable. (shrink)

Публикация (#13) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Публикация (#12) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Публикация (#10) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

El presente estudio aborda el nacimiento como problema filosófico desde una perspectiva intersubjetiva y corporeizada derivada del análisis del Cuerpo y el Otro presente en la Fenomenología de la Percepción de Merleau-Ponty. A partir de lo anterior, se discuten las limitaciones que tendría la coexistencia (Mitdasein) de Heidegger y la Otredad de Lévinas enmarcada en la relación del rostro en su intento de aproximarse a una filosofía del nacimiento desde una perspectiva de mundo compartido (madre-padre-hijo). Además, se plantea la necesidad (...) de incorporar al problema filosófico sobre el nacimiento tres etapas: embarazo-nacimiento-puerperio, ya que estas son fundamentales para ilustrar de manera profunda la dimensión relacional y corporeizada de este proceso que exhibe temporalidad e historicidad. (shrink)

In On the Soul and the Resurrection, St Macrina and St Gregory of Nyssa consider what the soul is, and its relationship to our body and identity. Gregory notes the way that our bodies are always changing, and asks which is most truly our ‘real’ body if we are always in a state of growth, decay and transience? What physical body will be with us at the resurrection? If our body is as important to our identity as our soul, then (...) who am I when my body changes? Macrina answers that our identity is bodily, but that the sufferings and passages of time that alter our bodies mean that we are an imperfect version of ourselves in this life. The person that we will be at the resurrection will be free from the influence of evil and the ravages of impermanence. Modern-day science fiction wrestles with Gregory’s problem—where is my identity located? If my body is altered beyond recognition, or my mind transferred to a new body, am I still me? These cyberpunk and transhumanist worries call to mind the ancient topic of mind/body dualism, and Macrina and Gregory have some surprisingly relevant insights to offer to our contemporary technological dilemmas. (shrink)

Many philosophers have understood the representational dimension of affective states along the model of sense-perceptual experiences, even claiming the relevant affective experiences are perceptual experiences. This paper argues affective experiences involve a kind of personal level affective representation disanalogous from the representational character of perceptual experiences. The positive thesis is that affective representation is a non-transparent, non-sensory form of evaluative representation, whereby a felt valenced attitude represents the object of the experience as minimally good or bad, and one experiences that (...) evaluative standing as having the power to causally motivate the relevant attitude. I show this view can make sense of distinctive features of affective experiences, such as their valence and connection to value in a way which moves beyond current evaluativist views of affect. (shrink)

Intuitively, moral responsibility requires conscious awareness of what one is doing, and why one is doing it, but what kind of awareness is at issue? Neil Levy argues that phenomenal consciousness—the qualitative feel of conscious sensations—is entirely unnecessary for moral responsibility. He claims that only access consciousness—the state in which information (e.g., from perception or memory) is available to an array of mental systems (e.g., such that an agent can deliberate and act upon that information)—is relevant to moral responsibility. I (...) argue that numerous ethical, epistemic, and neuroscientific considerations entail that the capacity for phenomenal consciousness is necessary for moral responsibility. I focus in particular on considerations inspired by P. F. Strawson, who puts a range of qualitative moral emotions—the reactive attitudes—front and center in the analysis of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Публикация (#8) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar e discutir a sugestão de Fred Dretske para analisar o problema dos qualia. Tal problema, caro à Filosofia da Mente, ficou conhecido pela discussão desenvolvida por Thomas Nagel em seu clássico artigo What is it like to be a bat. Nesse artigo, Nagel postulou a impossibilidade de se conhecer, em perspectiva de terceira-pessoa, os aspectos da experiência humana. Ele considera que, mesmo após as descrições objetivas da experiência de um sujeito, escapariam ainda aspectos qualitativos, (...) fundamentais para se caracterizar os qualia. A partir de sua Tese Representacionista da mente, Dretske argumenta que seria possível dissolver esse problema se admitirmos que a mente é a face representacional do cérebro, a natureza dos qualia seria, assim, representacional. Nesse contexto, os fatos mentais relacionados às experiências seriam fatos representacionais: se conhecermos a natureza desses fatos representacionais conheceremos também a experiência do sistema que a representa. Diante de tal entendimento, discutimos em que medida a proposta dretskeana constitui uma alternativa ao problema dos qualia. (shrink)

Публикация (#3) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Публикация (#2) из научно-популярного цикла: "Структурная онтология познания с доктором Шимко".

Henri Bergson developed an extensive analysis of duration, which consists of the subjective perception of changing situations in a fluid and continuous perspective, distinct from the notion of chronological time. From this starting point, he defined consciousness by this criterion of temporal continuity, as accumulated memory. Jean Schneider presented a formalization of the self-referential characteristic of duration. In this paper, a parallel will be drawn between these models and the theory of self-reference from causal superposition. Some extensions of this theory (...) will be presented, especially an approach to the problem of experience, and a generalization of referential properties to other types of information perspectives. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I make a consideration about the relationship between phenomenology and empirical sciences about conscious experience. Recently, it has been suggested by proponents of 'naturalized phenomenology' that phenomenology and cognitive sciences should exchange with each other. This proposal prompts us to abandon the 'puristic' conception of phenomenology, according to which phenomenology is independent from empirical sciences. I show that, though abandoning purism and exchanging with cognitive sciences is fruitful for phenomenology, proponents of naturalized phenomenology underemphasize an important feature (...) of phenomenology -- its autonomy of a certain kind. (shrink)

André Gallois’s book is a sustained defence of first-person authority in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. His work is set against the externalist tide of current epistemology in which many philosophers are sceptical about first-person authority with respect to their beliefs. This implies that other individuals are in a better position to determine what our beliefs are than we ourselves can be, which highlights the authority of third person accounts of justification. Gallois’s work is a direct attack on such (...) views since he argues that it is only from within the first-person perspective that an individual can determine whether s is justified in believing x. Without relying on observation, an individual can justifiably self-attribute consciously held beliefs. Thus, first-person authority is essential for developing an adequate theory of knowledge since the justification of belief is impossible unless the first-person perspective is prior and privileged. (shrink)

What is consciousness? What is the place of consciousness in nature? These and related questions occupy a prominent place in contemporary studies in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, often involving complex interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, these questions play a fundamental role in the philosophies of great thinkers of the past such as, among others, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, William James and Edmund Husserl. This new collection of essays by leading (...) contemporary philosophers of mind and historians of philosophy seeks to address these questions from both a systematic and a theoretical perspective and to create a new and fruitful forum for future discussion. In the attempt to do justice to the richness of our mental life, the volume features in-depth examinations not solely of mainstream physicalist doctrines, but also of largely neglected positions such as Cartesian dualism, idealism and panpsychism. (shrink)

This issue is dedicated to consciousness in medieval and early modern philosophy of mind. It aims to shed new light on the continuities and innovations during the transition from medieval to early modern philosophy of mind. The four papers, by Sonja Schierbaum, Daniel Schmal, Oliver Istvan Toth, and Philipp N. Müller, focus on consciousness and, more specifically, on one of its less frequently considered aspects: memory.

Although Descartes’s ideas regarding consciousness and memory have been studied extensively, few attempts have been made to address their systemic relations. In order to redress this deficiency, I argue in favor of three interrelated theses. The first is that intellectual memory has a crucial role to play in Descartes’s concept of consciousness, especially when it comes to explaining higher forms of consciousness. Second, the connection between memory and consciousness has been obscured by the fact that intellectual memory, taken as a (...) subject in its own right, was relatively neglected in Descartes’s philosophy: By and large, his views on the matter remained within the limits of late scholastic Scotism. Third, what makes the question of intellectual memory so fascinating in Descartes is not some ground-breaking insight into its nature; rather, it is his gradual recognition of the role that intellectual memory plays in the constitution of higher forms of consciousness. With these arguments, and relying on Descartes’s 1648 correspondence with Antoine Arnauld, where he progressed beyond the substance-based approach to the self, I try to show that he deserves to be credited with a more prominent status in the history of the self and personhood than has previously been the case. (shrink)

In this paper, I proceed from the assumption that Ockham’s account of self-awareness can be correctly described as a kind of higher-order approach, because just like modern higher-order theorists, Ockham accounts for a mental act being conscious in terms of a higher-order act that takes the act as its object. I aim to defend Ockham’s approach against the objection that it fails to provide an explanation of how self-awareness comes about because any such explanation would be circular. Part of the (...) critique, in light of recent findings in Ockham scholarship, is that the ontological identity of the subject does not suffice to explain – in a non-circular way – the psychological identity and unity of the subject of awareness. Here, I argue that Ockham can respond to this objection by highlighting the power of will. Roughly speaking, the idea is that he can account for the limits of the psychological subject in terms of what the subject can want or will with respect to her own acts and these acts alone. It is along these lines that Ockham can account for the asymmetry between first-person and third-person perspective in a non-circular way, with reference to the exotic case of angelic mind-reading and the comparatively less exotic case of human memory. (shrink)

In the twentieth century there was a fundamental debate on the problem of consciousness within a philosophical perspective. In fact, one of the most difficult tasks for a philosopher of mind is to comprehend the role of phenomenal properties. Some philosophers want to convince us that phenomenal properties are completely reducible to physical properties, whereas others admit that our consciousness possesses non physical qualities. My aim in this paper is to provide a dualist perspective in order to solve the problem (...) of consciousness. There exist some intrinsic and subjective aspects of our perceptual experience of the world that cannot be identical with brain states. I maintain that the phenomenal facts are ontologically distinct from the physical facts and they are not reducible to them. I will demonstrate this thesis by taking into account the debate about whether conceptual analysis is required for reductive explanation. In the first two sections, I will present the main arguments against reductive physicalism and I will analyze the debate about conceptual analysis developed by Block & Stalnaker and Chalmers & Jackson. In the final section, I shall show that we can’t derive phenomenal truths from a complete physical knowledge of the world. Since we can’t support a reduction just on a posteriori identities between different kinds of phenomena, I maintain that the lack of a necessary conceptual connection between phenomenal properties and physical properties excludes reductive physicalism. Consequently, if we want to solve the mind-body problem we definitely need a dualist perspective. (shrink)