Facing Up to the Hard Problem of Biosemiotics

Biosemiotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Favareau
Author(s):  
Marcello Massimini ◽  
Giulio Tononi

This chapter uses thought experiments and practical examples to introduce, in a very accessible way, the hard problem of consciousness. Soon, machines may behave like us to pass the Turing test and scientists may succeed in copying and simulating the inner workings of the brain. Will all this take us any closer to solving the mysteries of consciousness? The reader is taken to meet different kind of zombies, the philosophical, the digital, and the inner ones, to understand why many, scientists and philosophers alike, doubt that the mind–body problem will ever be solved.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (14) ◽  
pp. R685-R688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaut Brunet ◽  
Detlev Arendt

Author(s):  
Daniel D. Hutto ◽  
Erik Myin

E-approaches to cognition—enactive, embodied, ecological—conceive of minds as fundamentally relational and interactive. They are often heralded as offering a new paradigm for thinking about the mental. Yet only the most radical versions of E-approaches—those that seek not to complement but to replace traditional cognitivist accounts of mind—have any prospect of ushering in a truly revolutionary rethink of the nature of cognition. This chapter considers whether such a conceptual revolution might really be in the cards. It identities the major options proposed by E-theorists, rating each in terms of degree of radicality. It reminds readers of the hard problem of content and reviews the range of options for handling it. It argues that “going radical” is one of the most attractive ways of dealing with the hard problem of content and that it is worth exploring the positive research program that going radical opens up.


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