Tag Archives: Philosophy of Mind

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 →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , , | 189 Comments

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 →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 32 Comments

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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Why embodiment does not make mind copying impossible

Posted on May 1, 2017 by

A while back, I highlighted a TEDX talk by Anil Seth where he discussed that cognition is largely a prediction machine.  Apparently Seth more recently gave another talk at the full TED conference, which is receiving rave reviews.  Unfortunately, that talk … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker: From neurons to consciousness

Posted on April 15, 2017 by

This lecture from Steven Pinker has been around for a while, but it seems to get at a question a few people have asked me recently: how does the information processing of neurons and synapses lead to conscious perception?  Pinker doesn’t answer this … Continue reading →

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