D. Chalmers and J. Perry on Zombie Problem and the Content of Phenomenal Concepts

David Chalmers and John Perry both construe phenomenal concepts as irreducible to descriptive concepts of physical properties or properties, which logically supervene on them. But they draw different conclusions from this point. D. Chalmers in The Conscious Mind argues that the epistemic gap between phenomenal and physical properties shows that the former cannot be ontologically identified with the latter. J. Perry in Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness claims that we can identify phenomenal properties with physical ones without being committed to reductionism. In this paper I am going to examine Chalmers and Perrys views on meaning and necessity, especially with respect to identity statements, in order to find where exactly their ways of thinking about the content of phenomenal concepts.

Panprotopsychism Instantiated

The problem of many-over-one asks how it can be that many properties are ever instantiated by one object. A putative solution might, for example, claim that the properties are appropriately bundled, or somehow tied to a bare particular. In this essay, the author argues that, surprisingly, an extant candidate solution to this problem is at the same time an independently developed candidate solution to the mind-body problem. Specifically, what is argued here to be the best version of the relata-specific bundle theory—the thesis that each instance of compresence has a special intrinsic nature in virtue of which it necessarily bundles its specific bundle-ees—is also a species of Russellian monism, labeled by David Chalmers as ‘constitutive Russellian panprotopsychism’. The upshot of this connection is significant for the metaphysics of the mind-body problem: a credible theory of property instantiation turns out to have a built-in account of how consciousness is grounded in certain (broadly) physical systems.

Not All Structure and Dynamics Are Equal

The hard problem of consciousness has been a perennially vexing issue for the study of consciousness, particularly in giving a scientific and naturalized account of phenomenal experience. At the heart of the hard problem is an often-overlooked argument, which is at the core of the hard problem, and that is the structure and dynamics (S&D) argument. In this essay, I will argue that we have good reason to suspect that the S&D argument given by David Chalmers rests on a limited conception of S&D properties, what in this essay I’m calling extrinsic structure and dynamics. I argue that if we take recent insights from the complexity sciences and from recent developments in Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness, that we get a more nuanced picture of S&D, specifically, a class of properties I’m calling intrinsic structure and dynamics. This I think opens the door to a broader class of properties with which we might naturally and scientifically explain phenomenal experience, as well as the relationship between syntactic, semantic, and intrinsic notions of information. I argue that Chalmers’ characterization of structure and dynamics in his S&D argument paints them with too broad a brush and fails to account for important nuances, especially when considering accounting for a system’s intrinsic properties. Ultimately, my hope is to vindicate a certain species of explanation from the S&D argument, and by extension dissolve the hard problem of consciousness at its core, by showing that not all structure and dynamics are equal.

Human Mind and Its Carriers: Is It Possible to Transform Ourselves into Robots?

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the problem of carriers of human mind and person. The main emphasis is placed on the origin of our idea of the identi­cal self in the stream of perceptions, the need for a physical carrier of our self and person, and on possibility of replacing the biological carriers of self and per­son with artificial analogues. I argue that the idea of identical self is constructed by reflection on memories, that its truth is guaranteed by continuous stream of perceptions kept in memories, and that the stream of perceptions presupposes the presence of a normally functioning brain, which can be considered as a car­rier of our mind and person. Therefore, personal identity turns out to be depen­dent on the identity of the brain in time. An attempt to copy the structures of mind and person onto other possible carriers can thus only lead to creation of duplicates of the original person, but not to the continuation of its existence on another carrier. I argue that the gradual replacement of their components with artificial analogues is a more promising way of transforming the biological carri­ers of human person. To access the possible consequences of such a replacement I analyze arguments of John Searle and David Chalmers, designed to show, re­spectively, the disappearance of consciousness and person with such a replace­ment and, on the contrary, their preservation in a previous state. I explain why Searle’s arguments are unconvincing, and demonstrate that Chalmers’ arguments are based on a hidden premise, the confirmation of which is possible in the con­text of dubious theories of mind-body identity, epiphenomenalism or panpsy­chism only. I conclude that in the current situation it is impossible to predict which consequences for our person would follow such a replacement.

Consciousness is Result of Ether Energy Resonant Stabilisation Process - EERSP

In last fifty years, consciousness appeared to be the most intriguing scientific question. For most people, that question, does not exists. The fact that we are aware that we exist is something what is not questionable. With the development of quantum mechanics, where the matter was described by wave function, life and accompanied processes were supposed to be mathematically describable. Most of living internal function were successfully described by temporary chemistry and physic but, consciousness phenomena was not explainable within that domain. David Chalmers posed the most difficulties consciousness question: hard problem. This article, in short, describes consciousness as a result in ether energy resonant stabilization process (EERSP), based on ATOS (1) and Process physics (2).

A Interpretação Epistêmica da Semântica Bidimensional

O presente artigo pretende apresentar e avaliar criticamente o projeto racionalista de David Chalmers e Frank Jackson na interpretação epistêmica da chamada semântica bidimensional. Diferentes versões do aparato formal da semântica bidimensional são lançadas para resolver certos problemas no âmbito da filosofia da linguagem, a saber, dar conta do conteúdo semântico de termos indexicais, produzir uma explicação para os híbridos modais como instâncias do necessário a posteriori e contribuir para o debate acerca da determinação do conteúdo mental. De um modo geral, a semântica bidimensional estipula uma dupla dependência de expressões linguísticas frente a possibilidades ou cenários. Uma das noções centrais para a construção das possibilidades relevantes é a noção de “cenário”. O presente trabalho procura responder a duas objeções aa noção de cenário empregada por David Chalmers em sua interpretação do aparato bidimensional. AbstractThis paper aims at presenting and critically assessing the epistemic interpretation advanced by David Chalmers and Frank Jackson of the two-dimensional semantic framework. Different versions of the formal apparatus of the two-dimensional framework are used to account for philosophical phenomena such as the content of indexical terms, modal hybrids, such as posteriori necessities and the individuation of mental content. Generally, two-dimensional framework stipulates a double dependence of linguistic terms on possibilities or scenarios. One of the central notions for the construction of the relevant kind of possibility is the notion of “scenario”. The aim of the paper is to defend the two- dimensional framework from two objections regarding the notion of scenario.

Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness by Philip Goff

A new book by Philip Goff, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, accomplishes a number of notable things. Perhaps foremost, Goff provides an excellent overview of the debate on consciousness for a wide audience with little or no background in philosophy. He guides the reader through the various frameworks that include dualism, physicalism, and panpsychism. Goff’s Galileo’s Error thus provides an excellent introduction for anyone with interest in the growing science of consciousness. However, Goff does promote a particular angle. As a professor of philosophy at Durham University, Goff has followed the arguments of David Chalmers and others that materialistic explanations ultimately fail to explain consciousness. Like Chalmers, Professor Goff believes that in order to find a successful explanation, we will likely choose a direction that takes consciousness as fundamental in some sense. Toward this end, Goff has also become a leading advocate for panpsychism, the view that the ultimate particles that constitute our world have a mental aspect.However, Goff’s book also provides an important contribution regarding the philosophy of science. By examining science’s development at an early stage, especially Galileo’s role, Goff addresses an important aspect to the current debate on consciousness. And attention on the role of philosophy in science is also important, given the recent bashing philosophy has been handed by some scientists. To make progress on consciousness, Goff argues we will likely need to do some hard thinking and reexamine some of our core assumptions. He provides many examples to demonstrate that often what is required is time spent thinking and rethinking the problem, perhaps in contrast to voices who emphasize just getting on with the lab or field work.But what exactly is Galileo’s error, you might be wondering? Most of us recognize that Galileo played a pivotal role in ushering in the scientific revolution through emphasizing testing theories by observation. But as Goff notes, central to Galileo’s contribution was his emphasis on specific characteristics that could be quantified—size, shape, location, and motion. And this meant removing such qualities that we experience directly, such as taste and smell, out of the domain of inquiry. That is, Galileo pragmatically sought to remove inherently subjective matters that could not fit into a quantitative framework. This has brought mixed fruit. Science, as conceived by Galileo, is widely seen as one of the most successful developments in the history of thought. The focus on subjects that could be analyzed mathematically has led to true triumphs in understanding as well as abundant applications that have transformed the physical world.

INCOMPLETE NATURE AND SELF - BODY PROBLEM: EMERGENTIST TRANSCENDENCE OF THE DUALISM OF SPIRIT AND MATTER

The article presents an overview of the key arguments of Terrence Deacon's theory of how mind emerged from matter. Deacon’s emergentism is analyzed as a way of refocusing the «hard problem» of consciousness. He suggests considering the phenomenon of consciousness as a dynamic coupling of mutually constraining processes. Such coupling is the defining feature of the subjective self and other teleodynamic phenomena. So self cannot be found as something embodied in existing material substrates. Consciousness is not present in such substrates themselves, but in the way different processes unfolding in these substrates constrain each other. Deacon shows that even looking at the simplest forms of life (autogens) one can observe that in them each part, interacting with other parts, creates the whole, and the whole as a synergetic complex makes possible the reproduction of its parts. The same principle underlies the organization of subjective consciousness, as subjective consciousness is hierarchically entangled with other levels of sentience. Thus, Deacon's emergentism is an attempt to take seriously the problem of the interrelation of spirit and matter by not simply to disregarding explanations that refer to the spiritual substance, but by offering the models of consciousness, sentience and purposiveness that could convincingly solve fundamental questions about the nature of consciousness in an alternative way. It is also an attempt to avoid the «naturalistic dualism» of David Chalmers, which involves splitting material information into physical and phenomenal aspects. According to Deacon, in explaining subjective self, one can do without both Cartesian spiritual substance and Chalmers' phenomenal information, but then what is necessary is to acknowledge the significance of absential phenomena (the phenomena that are intrinsically existing in relation to something missing, separate or nonexistent).