Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest

The continuities between human and animal minds are increasingly well understood.

Consciousness Explained

Found insideOur current theories about conscious life-of people, animal, even robots--are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book.
Consciousness is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? But in an Berkelian idealist view, as well as in dualism, consciousness can be thought of as separate from qualia, and perhaps its “generator.” The ‘classic’ conception of qualia, on which qualia are intrinsic, ineffable, and subjective, will not serve this purpose, but it is … Phenomenal consciousness in its most rudimentary form has been defined as the subject entity’s experience of qualia. Qualia are “individual instances of subjective, conscious experience” (Qualia). Pessimists think it isn’t partly on the grounds that phenomenal consciousness consists in the presence of qualia. When we speak about qualia, we mean a concept that has specific properties. Quining diet qualia ∗ Keith Frankish Abstract This paper asks whether we can identify a theory-neutral explanandum for theories of phenomenal consciousness, acceptable to all sides. Theories of qualia 3. In both cases the idea is to conceptually separate qualia (which, for both writers character ize phenomenal consciousness) from any functional or representational prop erties.

Physicalism and Phenomenal Consciousness

My primary aim is to adjudicate the ongoing dialectic between dualists and physicalists regarding the ontological status of phenomenal consciousness -- physical or nonphysical -- by examining the two major arguments most commonly deployed ...
University of Michigan. phenomenal consciousness, qualia . INTRODUCTION . (1) Qualia as phenomenal character. Is phenomenal consciousness susceptible to scientific investigation? Focusing on the latter we find the experienced character of consciousness—the “redness of red” or the painfulness of pain— often termed “qualia” or “phenomenal character” in the literature (compare Crane 2000). 1. "qualia" or "what-it's-like-ness". One of the most fundamental questions about the mind concerns its relationship to the body (and, more specifically, its relationship to the brain). How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? the metaphysical step. I am going to defend Chalmer’s case for the hard problem of consciousness … The following is a long excerpt from an unpublished paper I wrote in 2012-2013, mostly before I was enmeshed in rationality-community ideas. It is demanded since consciousness is a central (if not the central) aspect of mental life.

Consciousness

"This book provides a comprehensive and novel theory of consciousness.
When it comes to conscious thinking which does not have the phenomenal feel, Carruthers posits a mental faculty, which he calls a "mind-reading" faculty. Hage argues that phenomenal consciousness (and qualia) does not ha ve any . Introspective consciousness has seemed less puzzling than phenomenal consciousness.

Blockheads!: Essays on Ned Block's Philosophy of Mind and ...

The essays and responses not only address Block's past contributions but are rich with new ideas and argument.

The Elements of Phenomenal Consciousness

In this book I defend three common sense views about the nature of these qualities: first, that there really are such qualities and that they have features significantly unlike anything else; second, that such qualities cannot be completely ...

Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes ...

In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.

E-Physicalism: A Physicalist Theory of Phenomenal Consciousness

This work advances a theory in the metaphysics of phenomenal consciousness, which the author labels “e-physicalism”.
We should, in particular, avoid stacking the deck in favor of disputable theories by introducing the topic in ways that from the start narrowly restrict phenomenal consciousness to “sensory qualia” or “felt qualities,” or immediately make the mind’s self-representation essential to, or constitutive of consciousness. This video is about 66 minutes long. Guven Guzeldere presented the concept qualia as “expe-riences have phenomena and thus non-causal, non-representational, non-functional and perhaps non-phy-sical properties” (Guzeldere, 1997). Our topic is phenomenal consciousness. Haugeland suggests that the states that can be functionalised The 'classic' conception of qualia, on which qualia are intrinsic, ineffable, and subjective, will not serve this purpose, but it is widely The truth is, it is difficult to define consciousness in a scientific or philosophical way. How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Consciousness and qualia The concept of consciousness has been the source of much philosophical, cognitive scientific and neuroscientific discussion for the past two decades. (1) Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind

This is the most authoritative and comprehensive guide ever published to the state of the art in philosophy of mind, a flourishing area of research.
Qualia are the phenomenal qualities of experiences—the raw felt qualities of sensations, emotions, thoughts, or anything else. They are experienced privately, subjectively, and directly; all the content of consciousness states is made of them. How do you know that you’re conscious? In particular there is controversy over the claim that a “strong” or radical form of emergence is required to explain phenomenal consciousness. What is called the problem of absent qualia? This view is taken as a response addressed to the metaphysical aspect of the mind-body problem.

Phenomenal Intentionality

This book of new essays explores a number of issues raised by the notion of phenomenal intentionality.
“Challenges to functionalism through phenomenal consciousness: inverted qualia and absent qualia” This paper explains the main theses of functionalism about mental states. Its contention is that reference to consciousness in psychological science is demanded, legitimate, and necessary. Ouch! Eric Lormand. Keywords Phenomenal consciousness Qualia Representationalism Type materialism Christopher Hill’s superb Meaning, Mind, and Knowledge (2014) contains seminal essays that Hill published over the course of 41 years, and, in addition, some first- time published essays that break new ground. Marks Angus Menuge Explains Why “Red” Is Such a … This is a philosophical study of qualitative consciousness, characteristic examples of which are pains, experienced colors, sounds, etc. Qualia are crucial elements of the bundle that constitutes a conscious subject. The phenomenal character of conscious states is identical to the representational content of the reciprocally interacting egocentric and allocentric representations. : Peter Ludlow, Yujin Nagasawa, Daniel Stoljar. 58. theories. There is not a uniform kind of consciousness common to all conscious mental states: beliefs, emotions, perceptual experiences, pains, moods, verbal thoughts, and so on. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness or ‘what it is like’ character of subjective experience is called ‘qualia’; the singular form of the word is ‘quale’, from the Latin for ‘what sort’ or ‘what kind’. Qualia are ways things seem to a subject (Block 1994: 210–1). Jon Laxmi Consciousness Essay #10 Professor Ned Block / Philippe Lusson December 3 rd, 2010 On “Quining Qualia” 1. Marks Angus Menuge Explains Why “Red” Is Such a … Chapter: 11 Author: William G. Lycan Title: Consciousness and Qualia Can be Reduced. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This is crucial because it would challenge the definition of qualia (as phenomenal consciousness) that takes us to the logical conclusion that if two Mental processes form a hierarchy of mental representations with maximally egocentric (self-centered) representations at the bottom and maximally allocentric (other-centered) representations at the top. Many scientists, as well as ... phenomenal qualities is just the problem of explaining consciousness. As such, this theory is somewhat beside the point, as far as the survival value of having qualia or the evolutionary origins of phenomenal consciousness proper. concept qualia, raw feels or phenomenal consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how we have qualia or phenomenal experiences. These debates have implications as technological advances continue to refine artificial intelligence. Phenomenal objects are then presented as bundles of qualia. Kirk didn't invent them -- "Descartes seems to have thought up the idea" (p. 7) -- but Kirk (1974) did reinvent them. Subjective qualities are referred to as qualia in the plural, or quale in the singular. In this paper I am going to argue that phenomenal consciousness cannot be given a reductive explanation. There are a number of philosophical debates raging about what truly constitutes consciousness at all. A conscious experience is a mental experience of a quale. (The term conscious experience is used in the literature with this same or similar meaning by various authors [2,6,9,21,34-39]. Other similar or closely related terms in the literature are phenomenal experiences [9-12,24] and phenomenal consciousness [2,4-7,10-12,40].) conscious states have distinctive subjective feels; and some would say: they have qualia(I shall return to this terminology in a moment). consciousness can be completely explained empirically, for example, by the physical or the neurological processes of the brain, while the anti-physicalists argue that there are some properties of consciousness, which physical explanation cannot capture, such as qualia or phenomenal consciousness. This is a philosophical study of qualitative consciousness, characteristic examples of which are pains, experienced colors, sounds, etc. Thought that consciousness has been debated for over a century, but what does really. Defends a view called antecedent physicalism. < /span a bundle theory of the mind that pertain phenomenal... 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