Questions tagged [consciousness]
Consciousness, and related notions like sentience and self-awareness, denote the capacity of certain organisms to express recognition of their own presence in the world.
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Consciousness and computation
What are the links that are proposed between consciousness and computation? I.e. what are the theories of how computation creates consciousness?
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Is the God of Spinoza a conscious being?
Per Spinoza, everything ultimately derives from God and as humans are conscious beings through the attribute of thought, would it then follow that God is a conscious being through the attribute of ...
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Experience as an initial value problem?
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The argument seems to say just as I have a physical initial value problem and with the laws of physics tell the time evolution, similarly, I can have an initial value problem of experience ...
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What is consciousness? Is it the ultimate reality of our universe? What implications do the various theories of consciousness have on human life?
Does a child has more consciousness associated with her or her adult form?
What about her foetus? If her foetus is not yet properly developed (it has just accumulated a bit more mass and complexity ...
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Functionalism and potential causation
Functionalism, in philosophy of consciousness, is the idea that consciousness arises from the functional role that parts of a system play within that system.
More specifically, as I interpret it here:
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How is the study of consciousness (as a discipline) differs from philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience?
I recently come across books on the study of consciousness per se which seems to use a multidisciplinary approach similar to how cognitive science was studied about 30 years ago (being a joint effort ...
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Could the principles behind Ohm's apply to more than electricity mindlessly taking the shortest path? [closed]
Nobody seems to think of electricity as a being conscious because it doesn't think, it doesn't have free will nor intelligence, it just follows Ohm's law and can't do anything else. That doesn't make ...
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Is a decision made before the rationalization?
Well, I was listening to a podcast in Spanish and a great scientist was saying that there are studies that are seeing that decision making is not as rational as we think it is. He says that the moment ...
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Is Dennett what Williamson calls a Judgement Skeptic?
Timothy Williamson in Evidence in Philosophy, chapter 7 section 3 of his book "Philosophy of Philosophy" (2007), conveys the notion of the Judgement Skeptic - e.g. (bold emphasis is mine)
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Does knowledge require consciousness?
Does knowledge require consciousness for the entity that knows? In other words, is it the case that only conscious entities can know things? I was led to ask this question by considering whether or ...
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Which branch combines solipsism and monism?
Which branch of philosophy whole-heartedly accepts (and builds upon) that only self exists (solipsism) and the universe is the part/creation of self (monism) by eliminating the possibility of ...
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Are Boltzmann brains conscious under functionalism?
How can they be conscious if there is no function/computation going on? And who argues that they are not conscious (I haven't found anyone except David Wallace just stating that this is his view on a ...
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AI philosophers
Which modern philosophers examine problems of ethics and knowledge between artificial, intelligent agents, leaving their relationship to humans aside?
What I'm looking for:
The assumption that AIs ...
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If Integrated Information theory is correct, might ant colonies and beehives be conscious and self aware?
Julio Tononi proposes that consciousness arises when information is extensively processed and shared between components of a system (like the brain). Ants and bees (and some fungi) share chemical ...
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What if I get born again as the same person for ever?
What if after I die my life starts all over again? With the same body and the same consciousness! Do you have counterarguments? 😓
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What if my life starts all over again for all eternity?
What if only I have a consciousness and after I die my life starts all over again for all eternity?! And the memories of my previous life get deleted? Please give me counterarguments! 😔
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What if my life gets repeated again and again?
What if only I am real? What if when I die my life starts all over again? Like an endless loop? And all of my memories get deleted? Please give me arguments against this!
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Is the claim that a non conscious entity cannot create a conscious entity valid?
In a debate I watched online, the theist person claimed that conscious creatures, such as humans, can only be created by a conscious being, because a non conscious being isn't able to give this ...
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What are the best Arguments against solipsism?
I am afraid that only my consciousness exists. That basically my consciousness simulates my body and the entire world. Please help me.
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When can we arrive at a border but not cross it?
Does that mathematisation of consciousness allow us to think of arriving at a limit but not crossing (some things seem to suggest we do not cross borders we do get to)? Is that the case only for some ...
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How can visual and other sensory information be transmitted by genes?
As we learned from those viral videos –look up “cat cucumber” if you haven’t seen them–, cats seem to be hard-wired to be scared of cucumbers and other objects that resemble snakes.
Behavioural ...
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How to tell if a transferred consciousness is authentic
In star trek when people get on the transporter they pop out somewhere. But how do we know if they are not just clones. Is there a test that actually exist in real life that can actually tell if a ...
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‘Libet’s delay’ and the philosophy of mind and free will
If you are not familiar with Libet delay and the neuroscience of free will, you can read it below. It seems philosophers are interested in the topic since it relates to the philosophical notions of ...
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What makes consciousness different for two different people?
I have a brain (A) that consists of certain atoms in a specific combination (C). If I destroy this brain, and afterwards regenerate the brain with the same atoms and combination (C), is this still ...
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What does Searle mean by "intentionality" and "causal processes"?
I am struggling to understand the meaning of some of the terminology John Searle uses in "Mind, brains, and programs." For example, right before "IV. The combination reply," he ...
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Question about the difference between qualitative and quantitative reasoning
I've been reading what Wikipedia has to say about qualitative and quantitative reasoning and I had a question about the difference. Are qualitative properties always abstractions of quantitative ...
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Why is it impossible for a program or AI to have semantic understanding?
relatively new to philosophy.
This question is based on John Searle's Chinese Room Argument.
I find it odd that his main argument for why programs could not think was that because programs could only ...
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Phenomenology of consciousness/learning/understanding the every-day?
I am a machine learning scientist who watched a lecture series on phenomenology. I feel like, since it is the study of consciousness’ structures and how they behave over time, it might have utility in ...
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Does being able to train your brain mean or logically imply that you are distinct from your brain?
While reading Why I am not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson, I came across this quote:
The category mistake is tied to a fundamentally unstable way of thinking about who you are in relation to your brain. ...
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What is the correct consideration to give a hypothesis that a bacterium or a blade of grass has consciousness? Or the Sun?
In his 2021 book "Being You", Anil Seth writes:
"There is something it is like to be me, something it is
like to be you, and probably something it is like to be a sheep, or a
dolphin. .....
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If consciousness is unified, shouldn't nervous systems be unified?
If we grant that there is one consciousness per nervous system (or maybe 2 if we consider hemispheres) then it seems plausible to me that the nervous system (or brain or body) must be unified in some ...
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How can brain know about consciousness if it can't be observed outside ourselves?
Consciousness is subjective.
We can't observe consciousness outside ourselves.
I can't say whether another person is conscious or not, I just assume they are because they are similar to me.
Likewise, ...
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Does determinism prevent rationality?
If hard determinism is true, and our thoughts are merely the results of a causal chain of atomic interactions, are reason and logic illusory?
This matter has likely been discussed in another thread, ...
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What are the strong and contemporary philosophical arguments for believing in other minds? [duplicate]
What are the historically most cited and used arguments that philosophers have made for believing that other people have individual minds and feelings contrary to the assertions of solipsists?
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What does Integrated information theory tell us about non-biological consciousness? [closed]
What does IIT have to say about consciousness in rocks, stars or atoms?
Thank you!
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Is it the job of physics to explain consciousness? [closed]
Is explaining consciousness in the realm of physics?
Detailed question:
We know that consciousness exists. Or rather, I know that I have it. The rest of you may not be conscious, but I know that I am, ...
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Why did Schopenhauer think Will is the inner nature of things instead of just consciousness or experience?
Will, or volition seems as a quite complex process. But Schopenhauer claims it is the foundation of all things in the world, including rocks, electrons or photons. That seems quite implausible.
There ...
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Are physicalists at all in agreement what happens to conciousness if the rate of time is changed?
For the sake of ease of imagination, maybe it's good to use a Machian defintion of time, time is the relative configuration of all physical bodies+fields. I also want to be agnostic about the flow of ...
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Is this how the static block universe, arrow of time, and conscious experience hang together?
In the static block universe we posit a view-from-nowhere perspective.
When taking such a vantage, the thermodynamic arrow of time does not establish a preferred ontological direction of time. There ...
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Critique of those missing the Hard Problem?
From everything I've ever seen about the “Hard Problem of Consciousness”, the issue is that materialists and physicalists presume a different question and answer that one instead.
I feel like the two ...
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What is the philosophical term for when a property is emergent from an underlying structure?
There is a term that refers to this, which I can't find anywhere, but I remember it from studies of consciousness and the brain.
For example, "consciousness is ____ on the physical brain".
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Is anybody aware of studies that have proved objective ethics?
I recently watched a lecture from linguist Noam Chomsky, in which he alluded to studies that may or may not be coming closer to revealing the objectivity of ethics. A search for such studies has not ...
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Are levels of intelligence different levels of consciousness?
I just want to clarify that I do NOT think I have a more gifted mind than average. Not at all. However, I am very existential and often wonder about the nature of basic things.
Anyway, one of my ...
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Emergent consciousness
Thought experiment on emergent consciousness from physical object - brain:
Imagine we record all neural firings of human brain within 5 seconds interval. Now, if we replace each neuron with a single ...
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What does Spinoza mean by Acquiescentia in se ipso?
In Part V of Spinoza’s Ethics the pinnacle of human freedom and understanding is discussed as the viewpoint from eternal blessedness. How are we to characterize or interpret this doctrine of ...
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Really confused regarding being reborn
I posted this the other day however, nobody has really explained. I want to dismiss the notion of a soul/spirit, and i believe when I die, my memories/personality/experiences will die with me.
However ...
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Irrational fear of reincarnation. Please help [closed]
I’ve been having these irrational thoughts regarding reincarnation. I’m worried that after death, I will be reborn as a prey animal, farm animal or a new human with a shitty existence. I would have no ...
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Would quantum uncertainty in neurons mean free will or just random will?
Famed physicist Penrose has an interesting albeit speculative theory that tiny structures in the Neuron facilitate conciousness beyond the way we currently think neurons work.
Whether he's right or ...
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Is a physical process identical to an algorithm computing it?
I have read three questions about algorithms and their relation to the human brain.
Two recent ones:
Question on Godel's Remark on Algorithmic Nature of Mind
and:
Why doesn't Searle's ...
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Where is it that I go when I dream?
This is a question that I had posed regarding the nature of mental images described by patients who suffer from Charles Bonnet Syndrome here:
What is the nature of the mental images that are perceived ...
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