Philosophy Now Forum

There are perspectives other than Hume’s radical empiricism. Consciousness ranging from waking and sleeping; subconsciousness, deep sleep or dreaming and altered states, and trance, conscious or unconscious. Sleep comes unaided except to insomniacs. Other states require aids, drumming, psychedelics...

A further thought there is also light, it may have a connection to conscious perception, if not to consciousness itself. Some physicists posit that it is a carrier of information but as that is not verified it exists as a theory until further research either verifies or refutes it. Some religions be...

Consciousness is the relation between subject and object, a reciprocal casual- reaction basis, where object/the world, is cause and the conscious subject is response, is the reaction, and reaction is cause to the physical world as the object. Hume’s view was that knowledge was derived from sense pe...

Our philosophical science correspondent Massimo Pigliucci asks. https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem Consciousness is the relation between subject and object, a reciprocal casual- reaction basis, where object/the world, is cause and the conscious subject is response, is the reactio...

Returned to this discussion and surprised to find it still in full venomous mode, strident and fanatical. What hope is there for humanity in this Tower of Babel.

Nothing like that. I am equating your mountain (or a molehill) to an equivalent mountain (or a molehill). Notice how the word "problem" appears in both the question AND the answer? That's a circular answer. Without boring you with the technical details of left recursion I'll simply ask yo...

I don’t get your point. You appear to be making a mountain out of a molehill. Nothing like that. I am equating your mountain (or a molehill) to an equivalent mountain (or a molehill). The simple answer to what is ‘a hard problem’ is: It is not an easy problem with an easy solution. Notice how the w...

OK, so you don't know what consciousness IS. And that's a "hard problem" to you. Do you know what a "hard problem" IS? Seriously! In the exact same sense you mean it when it when you ask the question "What is consciousness?" could you ask (and answer) the question &quo...

The Wikipedia doc. is technical jargon to anyone not in that field. If the physical is computational so be it. It does not solve the problem of what consciousness is unless it can be computed and it is hard to imagine awareness or intellect as computational. It is intangible unlike physical process...

Spinoza’s philosophy is speculative like all philosophies and has to be taken with a grain of salt. Of course it enforces the idea that nature is all there is and materialists are happy with that view. Spinoza did away with the Goddess. As his tradition was all about God with the goddess being dubio...

I agree. Although Pigliucci did refute the notions of Dennett (it is an illusion) and Churchill (it is brain processing). He agreed with Searle that it is real. Both see it as a biological process, without any real evidence to support that view. It appears to be the case that if you do not know wha...

Very late to the party but just wanted to add that I've rarely read a worse article on consciousness, and the competition is fierce. He seems to have as much understanding of consciousness as he does of Stoicism. Note that he does not even mention metaphysics and assumes that thirty centuries of re...

Agency is a problematic word when it comes to free will, it is difficult to find a substitute. Its literal meaning is one through which something is accomplished: INSTRUMENTALITY, which does not exactly imply free will. Mid-last century Sir John Eccles won a Noble prize for showing how chemical and ...

I thought this was an odd comment... This wouldn't resolve anything. Perhaps their are philosophical zombies. Perhaps patterns of matter call to them patterns of immaterial 'stuff' or give rise to it. The review also says... What if the other direction is accurate: ridding the ghost of the Cartesia...

Alan Brody reviews The Metaphysics of Mind by Anthony Kenny. https://philosophynow.org/issues/13/Driving_the_Ghost_from_the_Machine I thought this was an odd comment... Surely a desire to understand the mind in this way seems reasonable. Isn’t it plausible that some day artifacts (androids) entirel...