Tag Archives: Philosophy of Mind

Is there a conscious perception finish line?

Posted on January 19, 2020 by

Global workspace theory (GWT) is the proposition that consciousness is composed of contents broadcast throughout the brain.  Various specialty processes compete for the limited capacity of the broadcasting mechanisms, to have their content broadcast to the all the other specialty … Continue reading →

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For animal consciousness, is there a fact of the matter?

Posted on January 18, 2020 by

Peter Carruthers has been blogging this week on the thesis of his new book, Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Question Laid to Rest.  I mentioned Carruthers’ book in my post on global workspace theory (GWT), but didn’t get into … Continue reading →

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Peter Carruthers on the problems of consciousness

Posted on January 13, 2020 by

Peter Carruthers is posting this week at The Brains Blog on his new book, Human and Animal Minds, which I mentioned in my post on global workspace theory.  His first post focuses on two issues: latent dualism and terminological confusion. … Continue reading →

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Daniel Dennett on consciousness and the hard question

Posted on January 5, 2020 by

This interview is pretty much classic Daniel Dennett.  He starts off pointing out that introspection is unreliable, that our beliefs about our inner experience are what need to be explained, not necessarily what the beliefs purport to be reality.  He … Continue reading →

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The issues with higher order theories of consciousness

Posted on January 2, 2020 by

After the global workspace theory (GWT) post, someone asked me if I’m now down on higher order theories (HOT).  It’s fair to say I’m less enthusiastic about them than I used to be.  They still might describe important components of … Continue reading →

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Global workspace theory: consciousness as brain wide information sharing

Posted on December 29, 2019 by

Lately I’ve been reading up on global workspace theory (GWT).  In a survey published last year, among general consciousness enthusiasts, integrated information theory (IIT) was the most popular theory, followed closely by GWT.  However, among active consciousness researchers, GWT was … Continue reading →

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Massimo on consciousness: no illusion, but also no spookiness

Posted on December 16, 2019 by

Massimo Pigliucci has a good article on consciousness at Aeon.  In it, he takes aim both at illusionists as well as those who claim consciousness is outside the purview of science.  Although I’d say he’s more worked up about the … Continue reading →

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The problems with the Chinese room argument

Posted on November 10, 2019 by

In 1950, Alan Turing published a seminal paper on machine intelligence (which is available online).  Turing ponders whether machines can think.  However, he pretty much immediately abandons this initial question as hopelessly metaphysical and replaces it with another question that … Continue reading →

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Keith Frankish on the consciousness illusion

Posted on September 26, 2019 by

Along the lines of last night’s post, Keith Frankish has an article at Aeon describing and defending the illusionist viewpoint, that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion.  It’s an excellent introduction for anyone who isn’t familiar with the basic argument. As … Continue reading →

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Is consciousness really a problem?

Posted on September 25, 2019 by

The Journal of Consciousness Studies has an issue out on the meta-problem of consciousness.  (Unfortunately, it’s paywalled, so you’ll need a subscription, or access to a school network that has one.) As a reminder, there’s the hard problem of consciousness, … Continue reading →

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