Philosophy
Though neither scientists nor philosophers have a fully working theory of consciousness, the study of the brain has opened a small window into this phenomenon that is simultaneously the most familiar and the most baffling of all.
Though most contemporary philosophers reject dualism, and there is fairly wide agreement that consciousness is generated by the brain, we still don't know how the brain manages to pull off such a feat. We don't even know what it takes for a brain to do this. Are dolphins, chimps or dogs conscious? What about bees? And since consciousness seems to have a physical basis, is it theoretically possible to engineer computers that are conscious?
In the following short clip, Christof Koch introduces the biological basis upon which scientists and philosophers might want to build their research into this most fascinating of all questions (and rather intriguingly, argues for a view of pan-psychism that just seems to come out of left field...).
Stay tuned for a more serious treatment of these ideas, coming up soon.
.
- Animal Consciousness
I'm teaching a seminar on The Origin of Species this semester with a colleague who is writing on animal consciousness and it's generated a bunch of conversation around these parts, so I figured I'd raise the question here. At what point do...
- Philosophy: Brain In A Vat Argument ? Truth Revealed
Brains in a vat? That sounds terrifying, doesn?t it? Brain in a vat argument is one of the newest thought experiments in philosophy of mind (discussed by John Pollock). Many people raise objection to the brain in a vat theory but are there in fact any...
- John Searle - Our Shared Condition: Consciousness
Studying consciousness is notoriously difficult, and until only the last couple of decades, very few intellectuals (apart from philosophers and psychologists) dared to even think about how to try to understand it. But with the rise of new disciplines...
- Substance Dualism
Although most philosophers of mind are probably physicalists, there is still a live debate about the ontological status of mind: is it physical or immaterial? On one side of the debate are those who argue that thoughts are not physical, and therefore...
- The Secret You
What does it mean to be you? How is it that the physical matter making up the many neurons in your brain somehow produce your subjective, conscious experience? Are your neurons themselves conscious? While we're at it, what exactly is consciousness?...
Philosophy
Cristoph Koch - What Makes Us Conscious?
Though neither scientists nor philosophers have a fully working theory of consciousness, the study of the brain has opened a small window into this phenomenon that is simultaneously the most familiar and the most baffling of all.Though most contemporary philosophers reject dualism, and there is fairly wide agreement that consciousness is generated by the brain, we still don't know how the brain manages to pull off such a feat. We don't even know what it takes for a brain to do this. Are dolphins, chimps or dogs conscious? What about bees? And since consciousness seems to have a physical basis, is it theoretically possible to engineer computers that are conscious?
In the following short clip, Christof Koch introduces the biological basis upon which scientists and philosophers might want to build their research into this most fascinating of all questions (and rather intriguingly, argues for a view of pan-psychism that just seems to come out of left field...).
Stay tuned for a more serious treatment of these ideas, coming up soon.
.
- Animal Consciousness
I'm teaching a seminar on The Origin of Species this semester with a colleague who is writing on animal consciousness and it's generated a bunch of conversation around these parts, so I figured I'd raise the question here. At what point do...
- Philosophy: Brain In A Vat Argument ? Truth Revealed
Brains in a vat? That sounds terrifying, doesn?t it? Brain in a vat argument is one of the newest thought experiments in philosophy of mind (discussed by John Pollock). Many people raise objection to the brain in a vat theory but are there in fact any...
- John Searle - Our Shared Condition: Consciousness
Studying consciousness is notoriously difficult, and until only the last couple of decades, very few intellectuals (apart from philosophers and psychologists) dared to even think about how to try to understand it. But with the rise of new disciplines...
- Substance Dualism
Although most philosophers of mind are probably physicalists, there is still a live debate about the ontological status of mind: is it physical or immaterial? On one side of the debate are those who argue that thoughts are not physical, and therefore...
- The Secret You
What does it mean to be you? How is it that the physical matter making up the many neurons in your brain somehow produce your subjective, conscious experience? Are your neurons themselves conscious? While we're at it, what exactly is consciousness?...