Category: Consciousness and Qualia
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More on the Unity of Consciousness: From Self to Immortal Soul?
Suppose I see a black cat. The act of visual awareness in a case like this is typically, even if not always, accompanied by a simultaneous secondary awareness of the primary awareness. I am aware of the cat, but I am also aware of being aware of the cat. How does the Humean* account for…
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AI and the Unity of Consciousness
Top AI researchers such as Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI," hold that advanced AI systems are conscious. That is far from obvious, and may even be demonstrably false if we consider the phenomenon of the unity of consciousness. I will first explain the phenomenon in question, and then conclude that AI systems cannot accommodate…
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Searle, Dennett and Zombies
Another in a series of Substack uploads debunking the brilliant scientistic sophistry of the late Daniel Dennett. I have over a thousand dollars in pledges. Should I monetize or not? It seems rude and arrogant not to graciously accept gifts. On the other hand, philosophy for me is a labor of love, a vocation, a…
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The Problem of Consciousness: Galen Strawson’s Non-Solution
Top o' the Stack. Strawson beats Dennett, but not by much.
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Galen Strawson on Nicholas Humphrey on Consciousness
Substack latest. Strawson is right against Humphrey, but his own theory is worthless. See also: The Problem of Consciousness and Galen Strawson's Non-Solution UPDATE (10/3). A friend referred me to this article which I judge to be very bad indeed. See if you can make out what is wrong with it.
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Age Quod Agis: Agent and Awareness
Too much attention is wasted on what we did do and what we will do, and not enough on what we are doing. Age quod agis. "Do what you are doing." A excellent maxim. A non-philosopher will take it as such and then move on. The philosopher lingers and goes deeper. Verbally a tautology, the…
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Galen Strawson on Zombies
Top o' the Stack What are they? Where do they come from? What good are they?
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The Grain Problem
Ed Buckner writes, Here is another problem that needs to be carefully phrased. I want to say that the pitch of a musical note is continuous through time. I mean, at any point in continuous time, i.e. time as specified by the real numbers, the pitch of the note (e.g. middle C) is the same. However,…
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Consciousness is an Illusion . . .
. . . but truth is not? An inconsistency in Dennett. Over at the Stack.
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Can Consciousness be Explained?
Top o' the Stack. Dennett debunked!
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The Phenomenal Principle
Ed Buckner sends this: “If there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality then there is something of which the subject is aware which does possess that sensible quality”. (Howard Robinson, Perception, 1994, London: Routledge, p. 32) That is the question. If it sensibly appears to Jake that there is a…
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Regular programming to resume when Typepad gets its act together
Meanwhile, Happy Halloween from Screamin Jay Hawkins. Substack latest is about zombies and the value of being conscious.
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The Problem of Consciousness and Galen Strawson’s Non-Solution
Hi Dr. Vallicella, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, if it interests you to write about it on your blog, on Strawson's intriguing 2021 paper "Oh you materialist!", in which he argues for a materialistic monism and a deflation of the hard problem. Here is a link to the paper: https://philarchive.org/archive/STROYM Best, Chandler…
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From One Who Thinks that Consciousness is an Illusion
Once More on Whether Consciousness Could be an Illusion
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The Grand Central Polarity: Objective and Subjective
Objectively viewed, an individual human life is next-to-nothing: a fleeting occurrence in the natural world. But we know this, and we know it as subjects for whom there is a world of nature. If objectively we are next-to-nothing, subjectively we are everything. "When I die, the world ends." The thought expressed by this sentence is…