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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Does consciousness really exist?
Consciousness has been debated for centuries however not only we don't have a good definition of it, I struggle to believe this term makes any sense. To me it looks like the term was made up purely to ...
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Could someone help me interpret this article on the Many Worlds Interpretation?
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.03771.pdf
I am struggling to understand this paper because the depth in which the subject is discussed is much greater than my own. The topic is highly interesting to me, so ...
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101 views
What was Leibnitz's reasoning when he tried to prove machines cannot have consciousness using his “expansion” thought experiment?
I remember Leibnitz once particularly talked about this in one of his philosophy books (forget the book name, maybe Monadology). He said something like if consciousness can be made up of mechanical ...
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7answers
177 views
Why do people make theories without predictive power?
I studied neuroscience and during my studies I had a course called "The philosophy of consciousness". There we looked at a theory called Qualia, which infuriated me to no ends. Reading up on ...
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Is your consciousness the same every day?
I want to know what tell us the most popular theories of consciousness about its continuity over periods of uncounsciousness.
Identity through time is controversial, but assuming that you are the same ...
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1answer
73 views
Neutrinos & consciousness: fundamental link between the weak force, neutrino and biological cell? [closed]
I noticed several publications about a potential fundamental link between the weak force, electron neutrino and biological cell as origin of consciousness, however, there appears to be no 'buzz' about ...
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Why isn't there just one quale? (qualia)
As far as I know, the hard problem of consciousness is focused on how the physical and mental states relate. However I haven't been able to find any attempts to answer the question of why the "...
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1answer
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Is thinking an activity of a subject?
I am interested in the question of whether thinking must be an activity of a subject. Is it true that thinking has no reality without being a mode of the subject? Could it be possible that there is ...
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What did David Chalmers mean when he said we should use a nonreductive type of explanation of consciousness?
In "The Hard Problem of Consciousness", he stated "Given that reductive explanation
fails, nonreductive explanation is the natural choice." but what does this mean exactly? Is he ...
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Consciousness and atomic arrangement of body
Q1. If John disappears instantaneously at time t1 and is reconstructed at time t2 with exactly the same atomic arrangement, is John's consciousness in that new body?
Q2. If the answer to Q1 is yes, ...
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4answers
166 views
Why Do They Always Say to Keep The Faith On The Unknown, To Be Liberated? [closed]
Almost all the pious pundits and religious gurus preach us to keep the faith or take a leap of faith to be liberated. I don't understand, what is the faith all about and what to keep the faith on? ...
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166 views
Consciousness and Ontology
If consciousness is a fundamental property of reality, as David Chalmers and other philosophers/physicists speculate, does this mean that many of the ontological problems in philosophy would be solved?...
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Are philosophers just like poets when thinking about consciousness?
I bumped upon a book on metametaphysics and I feel like
reading about consciousness and philosophy of the mind
from a contemporary perspective, but right from the start,
in the face of an alarming net ...
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311 views
According to Chalmers, can neuroscience resolve the “hard problem of consciousness”?
This is a question that aims to clarify Chalmers's "hard problem of consciousness".
Suppose one day neuroscientists figured out how exactly to reproduce all (or virtually all) human ...
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What is hard about the āhard problem of consciousnessā?
By the āhard problemā, Iām referring to the exposition by David Chalmers.
He phrased the hard problem as āwhy objective, mechanical processing can give rise to subjective experiences.ā I find it ...
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4answers
240 views
Computer vs brain in many-worlds interpretation of QM
Assume that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true.
A classical computer that is modeled on the Turing machine is designed to perform exactly the same computation in each of the ...
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2answers
126 views
Was Peirce the first to distinguish objective and subjective possibilities?
I was reading IEP article about C.S Peirce where some of his logical notations for modal logic are presented, and one them seem to make a distinction between a subjective formula and an objective one....
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Did Charlies Peirce write this sentence or something closely related in meaning?
I saw the following phrase recently and I was surprised that it was ascribed to Peire:
"We do not really think, we are barely conscious, until something goes wrong"
Did Charlies Peirce write ...
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28 views
Trying to reconstruct the reasoning leading to the intentionality of consciousness ( Husserl's phenomenology)
I would like to have feedbacks on the following way to reconstruct Husserl's reasong in Cartesian Meditations as to the relationship of consciousness to its objects, and more generally to the world.
(...
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4answers
224 views
Understanding “Emptiness”
One of the many sincere efforts by mankind has been to try to understand "Emptiness" sometimes by scientific methods, sometimes by religious doctrines. Recently, we are trying to investigate ...
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4answers
364 views
Paradoxes regarding Identity of consciousness, illusion of present time
Thought experiment:
Lets say we have two (or more) exactly same brains, in the same state, having exactly the same neural activity (hardly possible in reality with biological brains, but eventually ...
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2answers
1k views
Why should I care about the person who will wake up in my bed tomorrow? [closed]
Is there some philosophical basis for temporal coherence of our identity?
I noticed that there were many changes in my beliefs and personality throughout my life, e.g. me from 2000 probably would ...
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4answers
627 views
Which aspects of consciousness are most often addressed by philosophers of mind?
What are the most discussed parts of consciousness according to philosophers?
Epistemologists cite perception, memory, reason, and testimony as frequent objects of philosophical discourse in respect ...
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212 views
Does panpsychism imply consciousness after death?
Does panpsychism imply that after we die, we will still exist as some form of consciousness? It might be so faint that we are barely aware of anything, but it might still be consciousness. Is there ...
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4answers
151 views
Does personal identity/“the self” persist through periods of unconsciousness, such as dreamless sleep?
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1
I read the above comic, something which turned out to be a mistake because I have just enough understanding of physics, and philosophy to follow its line of ...
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224 views
Does This Answer The Two Hard Problems ā Why Is There Anything? and How Do We Know It?
Question
I imagine that most philosophers, professional or amateur, must have some kind of personal philosophical view of their preferred ontology/metaphysic, even if it is incomplete. This is mine as ...
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290 views
Infinite Sleep vs Death
I know a similar question has been adressed before but I feel it did not address my question.
When we sleep all our pain/ache on our body vanishes for some time span, you do not know what happened ...
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1answer
61 views
Is there an existing assessment to determine a person's stance on the nature of mind, cognition, consciousness, etc.?
There are a lot of different theories about the nature of consciousness, cognition, and the mind. I'm looking for a set of questions that a person could answer that would then give them some kind of ...
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1answer
94 views
How likely is it you are actually a philosophical zombie? [duplicate]
A philosophical zombie is someone who strongly insists behaviorally they are conscious even though they don't actually have any conscious experiences at all. How likely is it that you, the reader, are ...
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2answers
99 views
Boundary case on the morality of torture [closed]
Most everyone would agree that "cold-blooded" torture is morally wrong. We agree so much so that many assume it's objectively wrong.
That being said, imagine this thought experiment:
A ...
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1answer
164 views
How to explain nothingness in Consciousness theory of Tegmark
The hypothesis was first put forward in 2014 by cosmologist and theoretical physicist Max Tegmark from MIT, who proposed that there's a state of matter - just like a solid, liquid, or gas - in which ...
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2answers
102 views
What can we conclude about consciousness in the past? [duplicate]
All we can be certain of is consciousness in the present. What can we conclude about consciousness in the past? Can we even conclude that it existed? Whenever someone presents "evidence" of ...
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3answers
147 views
Do you create your own thoughts? [closed]
Once upon a time I came up with the following paradox:
Statement 1. I have freedom of will.
Statement 2. If I have freedom of will, then I create my own thoughts.
For example: I'm gonna think about ...
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8answers
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Consciousness in Simulation theory & AI, why do some believe that it is even possible?
There are many famous philosophers that assume that "consciousness can be create by calculations in a computer". For example: Nick Bostrom with the simulation theory [I greatly respect and ...
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0answers
105 views
Does Eternalism imply looping consciousness?
If the idea of Eternalism as expressed by those like J.M.E. McTaggart and Sean Carroll is true (as much of physics seems to suggest), the idea of the present moment being more real than the past or ...
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52 views
What is the relationship between consciousness and memory?
If someone has amnesia for a certain experience, was that person conscious of that experience in the past or was that person never conscious at that moment? If that person dies, their memories are ...
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0answers
184 views
Is it possible philosophically that the entire cosmic void with one or more universe/s inside it will stop exist eternally?
As a conscious agent who suddenly appeared in this cosmic void as a child to my parents and got a consistent memory since about the age of 3;
With time I have learned of the question "why is there ...
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2answers
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Do really all mental states exist in some universe according to Many-Minds Interpretation?
According to the Many Minds interpretation of quantum mechanics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation), the distinction between worlds in the Many Worlds interpretation should be ...
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1answer
293 views
What do philosophers mean when they say qualia do not exist?
In university, my professor said that his position is that there are no qualia. He acknowledged that non-philosophers can find this position bizarre, but did not explain the rationale behind why he ...
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Is murder wrong accross the board? If not, when?
Is it wrong to murder anything, in any circumstance?
If sometimes its justified, based on species, circumstance, self defense, ideology, when is it considered wrong?
What is the justification for ...
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Are thoughts independent of physical variables around them and arise from inside?or just consequence of forces around it
For example non conscious bodies can't do a thing on their own ,like wind will move them, water will soak them, gravity will make them fall,but conscious beings can go against the nature like if i am ...
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What is justice? Is justice blind?
Is justice something you find at a courthouse? Where would you find justice?
From my perspective there is no justice until the one being judged has a say in how he is being judged. I believe ...
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3answers
943 views
What possible refutations are there for “we die every time we sleep”? [closed]
The proposition is as follows:
When I sleep, my consciousness dies. Next morning, another person's consciousness is born. He believes that he is me, but my consciousness is dead and never awake.
Are ...
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60 views
Do panpsychism and its variants (such as Russellian monism) face an interaction problem?
Many philosophers of the mindāsuch as David Chalmers, Galen Strawson and Philip Goffāhave become sympathetic to variants of panpsychism when it comes to explaining consciousness. Yet, on their own ...
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1answer
167 views
Does human conciousness “prove” that God exists?
I'm aware this question assumes our universe isn't an infinite regression.
The logic is as follows:
A is the source of everything. B exists. B came from A. Therefore B is an attribute of A.
A being ...
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2answers
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Definition of a “sense”
Besides the five basic senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) there is also, for example, the sense of balance. While it may seem that this one is not really about perceiving the external world ...
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6answers
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Probability of something given that time will exist forever?
What is the probability of something happening given that time always will exist? If time never ends, is it 100% likely that I will be born again after death?
I have a great way to illustrate my ...
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1answer
251 views
An English room inside Searle's Chinese Room?
The Chinese room experiment has a fundamental function of giving the system/person interacting with it the illusion that the room understands chinese, but it seems flaky to me what the term ...
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Assigning “self-awareness” to qualia as a necessary attribute [duplicate]
The teleportation question which I'm sure most of you have researched,
If I replicate you atom for atom, which one of them will be you?
The issue of materialistic basis for consciousness posits a ...
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5answers
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Why does Man ask Why questions? [closed]
I am not a particularly educated or intelligent individual. If this question is easily answered, forgive me. As I can think of no answer, I am compelled to ask. I'm afraid this line of questioning ...
