Tag Archives: Brain

The prospects for a scientific understanding of consciousness

Posted on July 2, 2018 by

Michael Shermer has an article up at Scientific American asking if science will ever understand consciousness, free will, or God. I contend that not only consciousness but also free will and God are mysterian problems—not because we are not yet … Continue reading →

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Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor? Is that a relevant question?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by

A while back, Julia Galef on Rationally Speaking interviewed Eric Jonas, one of the authors of a study that attempted to use neuroscience techniques on a simple computer processor. The field of neuroscience has been collecting more and more data, … Continue reading →

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The layers of emotion creation

Posted on August 12, 2017 by

What are emotions?  Where do they come from?  Are they something innate or something we learn?  The classic view is that they’re precognitive impulses that happen to us.  If so, this would imply that they have specific neural signatures. Early … Continue reading →

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Does information require conscious interpretation to be information?

Posted on July 15, 2017 by

Peter Kassan has an article at Skeptic Magazine which sets out to disprove the simulation hypothesis, the idea that we’re all living in a computer simulation. I personally find arguing about the simulation hypothesis unproductive.  Short of the simulation owner … Continue reading →

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Layers of self awareness and animal cognition

Posted on July 8, 2017 by

In the last consciousness post, which discussed issues with panpsychism and simple definitions of consciousness, I laid out five functional layers of cognition which I find helpful when trying to think about systems that are more or less conscious.  Just … Continue reading →

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Panpsychism and layers of consciousness

Posted on June 24, 2017 by

I’ve written before about panpyschism, the outlook that everything is conscious and that consciousness permeates the universe.  However, that previous post was within the context of replying to a TEDx talk, and I’m not entirely satisfied with the remarks I … Continue reading →

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The system components of pain

Posted on June 5, 2017 by

Peter Hankins at Conscious Entities has a post looking at the morality of consciousness, which is a commentary on piece at Nautilus by Jim Davies on the same topic.  I recommend reading both posts in their entirety, but the overall … Continue reading →

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