Philosophy
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 and technologies, consciousness is starting to become the hot topic among academics. One of the problems, however, is that we don't yet quite have a theory about what consciousness is, and without an answer to that question, it's not always clear what disciplines and methods are most appropriate to use to study it.
In the following TEDTalk presentation, philosopher of mind John Searle (famous among other things for his Chinese room thought experiment) makes the case for studying consciousness, and for his own understanding, not so much of what consciousness is, but of how to approach the question. In the process, he shoots down some of the most popular objections to try to study consciousness scientifically, arguing that regardless of its ultimate ontological status, it's a biological process with multiple levels of description.
- 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...
- 6. Eliminative Materialism
What is eliminative materialism? Please elaborate. Some scientists try to get a better understanding of consciousness with the process of eliminative materialism. If they can not understand a phenomenon with the use of mathematics, they use academic...
- 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?...
- The Chinese Room Thought Experiment
The rise of computers in the 20th century, and especially their exponentially increasing computational capacity and speed, has gotten many curious minds to speculate as to whether it is possible at some point to create computers that can think. Those...
- Brainspotting - Part 3
As you can probably tell from the majority of my blog entries, I love science, but even science with all its evidence, experiments and equipment can't compare with the kinds of questions that philosophy investigates and seeks to answer. Here is a...
Philosophy
John Searle - Our Shared Condition: Consciousness
In the following TEDTalk presentation, philosopher of mind John Searle (famous among other things for his Chinese room thought experiment) makes the case for studying consciousness, and for his own understanding, not so much of what consciousness is, but of how to approach the question. In the process, he shoots down some of the most popular objections to try to study consciousness scientifically, arguing that regardless of its ultimate ontological status, it's a biological process with multiple levels of description.
- 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...
- 6. Eliminative Materialism
What is eliminative materialism? Please elaborate. Some scientists try to get a better understanding of consciousness with the process of eliminative materialism. If they can not understand a phenomenon with the use of mathematics, they use academic...
- 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?...
- The Chinese Room Thought Experiment
The rise of computers in the 20th century, and especially their exponentially increasing computational capacity and speed, has gotten many curious minds to speculate as to whether it is possible at some point to create computers that can think. Those...
- Brainspotting - Part 3
As you can probably tell from the majority of my blog entries, I love science, but even science with all its evidence, experiments and equipment can't compare with the kinds of questions that philosophy investigates and seeks to answer. Here is a...