Tag: Neuroscience

The difficulty of isolating evidence for the location of consciousness

In the ongoing debate in neuroscience between those who see consciousness being in the back part of the brain, among the sensory processing regions, or in the front of the brain, in the cognitive action planning regions, there are issues confounding the evidence.  Most experiments testing for conscious perception depend on self report from the … Continue reading The difficulty of isolating evidence for the location of consciousness →

Angst over mini-brains

Organoids, the small pieces of neural tissue grown from stem cells, dubbed "mini-brains", and used in research, have been getting a lot of attention lately.  Apparently a few neuroscientists are concerned that the organoids might be sentient, and suffering as experiments are performed on them.  There's growing concern that implanting human mini-brains in animal brains … Continue reading Angst over mini-brains →

Michael Graziano on mind uploading

Michael Graziano has an article at The Guardian, which feels like an excerpt from his new book, exploring what might happen if we can upload minds: Imagine that a person’s brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation. The person’s mind and memories, emotions and personality would be duplicated. In … Continue reading Michael Graziano on mind uploading →

A standard model of consciousness?

I've often noted that I find more consilience than disagreement between the empirically grounded theories of consciousness.  They seem to be looking at the problem at differing levels of organization, and together they may present a growing scientific consensus about how the mind works. In particular, a few weeks ago, when discussing higher order theories, … Continue reading A standard model of consciousness? →

Joseph LeDoux’s theories on consciousness and emotions

In the last post, I mentioned that I was reading Joseph LeDoux's new book, The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains.  There's a lot of interesting stuff in this book.  As its title implies, it starts early in evolution, providing a lot of information on early life, although … Continue reading Joseph LeDoux’s theories on consciousness and emotions →

Ginger Campbell is doing a series on consciousness

I've highlighted Dr. Ginger Campbell's excellent Brain Science Podcast before.  It's an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the science of the brain.  Many of the books and concepts I've highlighted here over the years, I first heard about on her show.  Campbell, a medical doctor, pretty much focuses on neuroscience rather than philosophy, but … Continue reading Ginger Campbell is doing a series on consciousness →

Time to dump the concept of cognition?

An interesting paper came up in my Twitter feed.  Neuroscientist Paul Cisek notes that many of our current models on how the mind works come from dualistic traditions, as well as psychological ones that were heavily influenced by dualism.  He sees the concept of cognition having largely been created after dualism was abandoned.  It made … Continue reading Time to dump the concept of cognition? →