Zombies and Dolls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Massimini ◽  
Giulio Tononi
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

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.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
pp. 279-292
Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Living Organism ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The ‘Conclusion’ summarizes fundamental concepts and insights of the book. The brain is presented as an organ of mediation, transformation, and resonance. Its functions are integrated by the living organism as a whole, or by the embodied person, respectively: persons have brains, they are not brains. The deadlocks of the mind–body problem result from a short circuit between mind and brain which follows as a consequence from the systematic exclusion of life. A combination of phenomenological, embodied, and enactive approaches seems best suited to overcome this deficit. In contrast to naturalistic reductionism, this leads to a personalistic concept of the human being which has its basis in intercorporeality: it is in the concrete bodily encounter that we primarily recognize each other as embodied subjects or persons.

Neurophenomenology and the Spontaneity of Consciousness

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 133-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hanna ◽  
Evan Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Spatiotemporal Pattern ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
Dynamic Patterns ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable (Nagel1980, p. 150). My reading of the situation is that our inability to come up with an intelligible conception of the relation between mind and body is a sign of the inadequacy of our present concepts, and that some development is needed (Nagel1998, p. 338). Mind itself is a spatiotemporal pattern that molds the metastable dynamic patterns of the brain (Kelso 1995, p. 288).

The Mother

2018 ◽  
pp. 55-89
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
The Self ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
True Self ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

This chapter turns to philosophers and artists, seeking their views on the dilemma of consciousness and the self, as well as the related mind/body problem. Does consciousness – and personal experience – arise from the neurological functions of the brain (and if so, how), or is it but a shard of the flow of universal consciousness – and if so, is the mind only a channel of energy and should we forget about our cognitive functions, or train to use them in a different way? What does it mean to have a strong sense of personal identity – where does the ‘true self' lie? Having learnt from neuroscientists and most psychologists that our self seems to exceed the scope and depth of both body and mind, we hope that philosophy and art might guide us towards this ‘other' realm where our sense of identity emerges from.

Conclusion: Copernican Revolution—Is the Brain’s Spontaneous Activity an Empirical, Epistemic, and Ontological Game Changer in Neuroscience and Philosophy?

2018 ◽  
pp. 435-438
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Activity ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Game Changer

Are the brain and its spontaneous activity a “game changer” in our pursuit of the question of the existence and reality of mental features? A game changer is something that allows to take something into view that hitherto remained invisible and was not yet discovered. That, for instance, makes it possible to raise a novel question or problem replacing the previous one. I argue that the brain’s spontaneous activity is indeed a game changer in this sense, an “empirical and ontological game changer” in that it allows us to replace the mind–body problem with the world–brain problem....

Bio-centric Views of the Origin of Consciousness: The Search for the Solution to the Hard Problem

2018 ◽  
pp. 78-122
Author(s):  
Arthur S. Reber
Keyword(s):  
Distinct Type ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Two strategies are used to review the many efforts to solve (or resolve or dissolve) the Hard Problem. One searches for the neurocorrelates of consciousness, the effort to answer the question: “How does the brain make the mind?” The other looks for the first appearance of true consciousness in phylogenesis. Both approaches are reviewed and found wanting. The reason is they all begin with human consciousness and use it as the basis for the explorations. This, it is argued, has lead to a “category error” where the H. sap. mind is treated as a distinct type and not as a token on the same existential continuum as other minds. It also reveals the existence of the “emergentist’s dilemma” or the difficulty of determining how consciousness could spring into existence when one cosmic moment before, it didn’t exist. The chapter ends by anticipating criticism of these arguments and of the CBC and providing prophylactic arguments.

scholarly journals The dialog between psychoanalysis and neuroscience: what does philosophy of mind say?

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elie Cheniaux ◽  
Carlos Eduardo de Sousa Lyra
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Eliminative Materialism ◽  
Brain States ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Objective: To briefly review how the main monist and dualist currents of philosophy of mind approach the mind-body problem and to describe their association with arguments for and against a closer dialog between psychoanalysis and neuroscience.Methods: The literature was reviewed for studies in the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind.Results: Some currents are incompatible with a closer dialog between psychoanalysis and neurosciences: interactionism and psychophysical parallelism, because they do not account for current knowledge about the brain; epiphenomenalism, which claims that the mind is a mere byproduct of the brain; and analytical behaviorism, eliminative materialism, reductive materialism and functionalism, because they ignore subjective experiences. In contrast, emergentism claims that mental states are dependent on brain states, but have properties that go beyond the field of neurobiology.Conclusions: Only emergentism is compatible with a closer dialog between psychoanalysis and neuroscience.

Artificial Mind

2011 ◽  
pp. 83-93
Author(s):  
Rita M.R. Pizzi
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Computational Complexity ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Biological Cells ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Artificial Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

The advances of artificial intelligence (AI) have renewed the interest in the mind-body problem, the ancient philosophical debate on the nature of mind and its relationship with the brain. The new version of the mind-body problem concerns the relationship between computational complexity and self-aware thought. The traditional controversy between strong and weak AI will not be settled until we are able in the future to build a robot so evolved to give us the possibility to verify its perceptions, its qualitative sensations, and its introspective thoughts. However, an alternative way can be followed: The progresses of micro-, nano-, and biotechnologies allow us to create the first bionic creatures, composed of biological cells connected to electronic devices. Creating an artificial brain with a biological structure could allow verifying if it possesses peculiar properties with respect to an electronic one, comparing them at the same level of complexity.

Vision Comes to Mind

Perception ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 24 (7) ◽  
pp. 811-826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander I Cogan
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Neural Correlate ◽  
Experimental Solution ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Conscious Observer

An overview is presented in which visual awareness is regarded as the epitome of the general mind—body problem. An experimental solution of the problem is considered first, followed by a philosophical outlook. It is argued that the scientific approach may eventually discover the neural correlate of visual awareness, but visual perceptions, even simple qualia like ‘brightness’ or ‘color’, occur in the mind of a conscious observer and are not reducible to observable activity of a specific set of neurons in the brain.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document