Questions tagged [philosophy-of-mind]
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain.
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Does having free will presuppose consciousness, can philosophical zombies have it?
Philosophical zombies may lack a consciousness, but does this preclude the ability to have a free will? Why does consciousness matter, for agency, or at all, if determinism is real?
(I've framed the ...
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Is it plausible to believe in the existence of other minds if all arguments have been criticized?
I believe that other people also have minds.
To believe in other minds, arguments are needed.
All arguments in favor of the existence of other minds are subject to strong criticism.
So it turns out ...
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Can someone be an atheist and subscribe to substance dualism at the same time?
I consider myself to be firmly in the atheist camp. None of the arguments for the existence of a higher being or prime mover convince me, let alone attempts at proving the existence of the old God of ...
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Is the simulation of emotional states equivalent to actually experiencing emotions?
According to the 'Mario Lives!' video, researchers have been able to develop an AI unit that is able to experience emotional states, such as greed, hunger, and curiosity. If the AI is currently ...
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What are the problems with the argument for the mind-body dualism from immateriality of thoughts?
I have started studying philosophy of mind and I am currently reading an introduction to the field. The first topic that is presented in the book is dualism of the Cartesian brand, and the case for it ...
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Aren't we all philosophical zombies?
I've been reading about the philosophy of the mind, and I'm a bit confused. Everything I've read seems to start with the (unjustified) assumption that there is some aspect of the mind that isn't ...
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Why am I this particular human being?
Some philosophers dismiss this as a question about a tautology: when Alice asks "Why am I Alice?", this is equivalent to her asking "Why is Alice Alice?", which is not an interesting question. But ...
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What counters are there to Spinoza's argument that acts of free will create infinite regress?
My 16-to-21-year-old self was very preoccupied with free will. When I was 21 years old I rejected the notion as ill-defined as both my reason and my inner experience told me that my will was caused ...
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Does anyone assert the real existence of p-zombies?
Philosophical zombies are usually presented as, let say, "conceivable" and then this assertion is used to infer dualism.
Have any philosophers taken the position that p-zombies are in fact real, and, ...
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How do epiphenomenalists make sense of discussions about qualia?
Epiphenomenalists believe that mental events have no causal effect on the physical. They may differ in what they consider "mental events" but it seems all of them would consider qualia / phenomenal ...
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Philosophy and the question 'When is a robot considered alive and thinking?'
I originally posted this question in Robotics Stack Exchange, but it was deemed off-topic there and it was recommended I post here:
I was watching a youtube video of a robot:
https://www.youtube.com/...
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Can conjoined twins share a mind?
A unique recent case of conjoined twins having a neural bridge connecting their brains raises some philosophical questions concerning mind sharing and the mind-body problem. From the article by ...
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Strawson on Free Will: What are the most persuasive challenges to his position?
There are arguments against free will and moral responsibility which rely on strict causal determinism and/or determinism modified by quantum randomness. Criticisms of these views raise doubt as to ...
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Does materialism presuppose that a self is a bundle of mental states and perceptions?
The physicalist/materialist (going forward I'll use the two interchangeably) position on the mind body problem is the following:
Nothing exits besides the physical and therefore the mind is just a ...
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What are the differences between sentience, consciousness and awareness?
Dictionary definitions such as this one often seem to use the terms sentience, awareness, and consciousness as if they are synonymous with each other. Is this really the case? If not, how do they ...
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Is there a causal influence of the mental on the physical?
Regardless of whether the mental is ultimately physical or not... doesn't the impact of human knowledge (science, mathematics, etc) on the world (ie: technology, agriculture, basically everything), ...
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Are humans becoming more hive-like? Does this have philosophical implications?
Have any philosophers taken up human hive-like behaviour and its implications?
EO Wilson and others have outlined eusociality, a mode of group selection acting in addition to selection at the ...
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How can consciousness be an illusion?
Regarding this New Scientist article: Metaphysics special: What is consciousness?
It contains this strapline: “You may know beyond a doubt that you exist, but your ‘I’ could still be an illusion“.
(...
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Has Hofstadter's concept of strange loop been given a more formal treatment (by him or anyone else) than "GEB" and "I am a strange loop"?
I find Hofstadter's concept of strange loop and how it explains consciousness to be very compelling.
However I find the writing style in "Goedel Escher and Bach" to be too distracting and "I am a ...
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Does claiming that strong AI is impossible imply a belief in substance dualism?
I was reading an article by J Mark Bishop "The danger of artificial stupidity" on ScientaSalon, where he quotes his own research, John Searle and Hilary Putnam, among others, as proof of the ...
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Is it reasonable to believe that others have sentient minds?
Obviously I'm not looking for a valid deductive proof using formal logic, but at least a relatively convincing argument.
How do I know that humans who I encounter other than myself have sentient ...
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PhilPapers Survey 2020, Why do so many physicalists deny consciousness of future AI systems?
According to PhilPapers Survey from 2020 there are 239 philosophers who identify as accepting or leaning towards Physicalism and yet reject consciousness of future AI.
To me this seems very puzzling, ...
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How does the Chinese Room Argument handle the pile of sand paradox?
The Chinese Room setup is as follows, quoted from an earlier question on the same topic:
Imagine a native English speaker who knows no Chinese locked in a room full of boxes of Chinese symbols (a ...
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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 ...
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Is Nothing actually imaginable?
It's possible to imagine something, for example a table, we see one everyday and can bring it in front of our minds eye (although it's a moot point whether we can see it - I certainly don't). But of ...
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How does Penrose defeat the computational theory of mind?
In Shadows Of The Mind Roger Penrose puts forth a Gödelian argument against the computational theory of mind. He then goes on to suggest that quantum mechanics plays a central role in the realization ...
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Why do philosophical discussions of the teleportation paradox seem to ignore the physics involved?
When I read philosophy treatments of the teleportation paradox and related subjects like swampman, they seem to focus primarily on drawing analogies to various entirely different scenarios (...
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The ultimate absurdity: if consciousness is an illusion, how can anything we know be real?
Epiphenomenalism holds that conscious experience is an ineffectual by-product of brain activities. Eliminationists go further and add that this by-product is an illusion. I was wondering whether ...
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Are there laws which govern minds?
After much discussion of my question, How could 'objective morality' be known/investigated?, I've come to think that two earlier questions must first be asked:
Are there laws which govern how any ...
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What is the most useful boundary on the definition of 'thinking'?
Hard AI is one of the perennial problems of philosophy, but it immediately becomes mired down in notions like consciousness, qualia, etc. and whether a machine can have those. This usually skips ...
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Does modern philosophy believe in solipsism?
Does modern philosophy support solipsism? How many philosophers support this idea? Does solipsism scare philosophers? For example, the fact that all their close people can be unconscious, without ...
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Is the human mind capable of distinguishing between time running forward and time runing backward? [closed]
The title really says it all. Would we be able to feel anything if time started running backward?
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Can "why-is" close the "is-ought" gap? [closed]
[UPDATE: Clarified that choosing what-ought-to-be from what-can-be is based on our knowledge of ourselves, not on our knowledge of good and evil]
“I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of ...
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Are people capable of generating a random number?
Let's say you tell me to produce randomly a number from 1-100, and I choose the number 47. Can it be said that there is a specific reason I chose the number 47, and that it is not completely random? ...
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What is the term for the fallacy/strategy of ignoring logical reasoning intended to disprove a belief?
Updated 10/19/2018 -- Regards for all the responses. Much appreciated. To address the point of fact that one cannot "prove" anything about reality:
Yes, I agree. This is the reason I now set my ...
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What are the retorts to Searle's Chinese Room?
Searle's Chinese Room basically argues that a program cannot make a computer 'intelligent'.
Searle summarises the argument as
Imagine a native English speaker who knows no Chinese locked in a room ...
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Does consciousness depend on our five senses?
Does consciousness depend on our five senses? If we never have senses, would we have consciousness? It seems that if we lose our senses, we would maintain our consciousness. But if we never had senses ...
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How can a stream of thoughts and perceptions have freewill?
William James believed that there was no central entity or ego that embodied the "I" in "I feel" or "I think". That the continuous stream of thoughts and sensations generated the illusion of their ...
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Does Gödel's argument that minds are more powerful than computers have the inconsistency loophole?
In "Raatikainen, P., 2005, “On the Philosophical Relevance of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems,” , the author argues that Penrose's and others use of Gödel's theorem as an argument against mechanism (...
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In what fundamental ways, if any, does Husserl break with Kant?
I've read only slim secondary works on Husserl some time ago, and recently started "The Crisis in the European Sciences." So far, the framework seems faithfully Kantian. Husserl, for example, ...
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What is "intuition" for Kant?
Intuition appears to be a relatively abstract concept, an incomplete cognition, and thus not directly experienceable. Kant says that all knowledge is constituted of two parts: reception of objects ...
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Is it possible that I see color differently?
Is it possible that I see color differently; for example what I call 'red' is 'blue' in your vision.
Edited..
As we know the science of color, nothing is colored. Red is not "in" an apple. The ...
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Does Searle's Chinese Room model computers correctly?
Searle invented a thought experiment, the Chinese Room, which he proposes is an argument against Strong AI (that machines think) but not against Weak AI (that machines simulate thinking), he has a man ...
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Assuming a mind could be uploaded, how would we know if it worked?
Let's assume that all of the technology for uploading a mind actually exists. This is the hope held by some that we could one day transfer our brain contents onto digital media - in other words, ...
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What is the role of sensations in Wittgenstein's private language argument?
In Philosophical Investigations 244-254, before talking about private signs, Wittgenstein is talking about sensations.
He seems to divide this section into addressing in what way words refer to ...
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Is humanity as a whole a philosophical zombie?
In some respects human communities function like intelligent subjects. They acquire and process knowledge, and then act on it. This collective "intelligence" is not reducible to individuals: ...
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On cloning minds, persons and selves
Consider a teleportation booth which exactly replicates ones body and mind in Mars, whilst destroying that on Earth; as in Parfits Reasons and Persons.
There is only one you at any one time; so ...
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How is the concept of "beyond word" viewed in many school of thoughts?
This is my review on the concept of "beyond word":
Taoism and Buddhism seems to share that wisdom can't be grasped intellectually. In Zen practice, the koans are presented as nonsensical questions so ...
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Is objectivity necessary for anything beside communication?
By "subjective", I mean something that occurs only in a single mind and cannot be shared even in principle. A common example is pain. You cannot feel someone else's pain. You might observe ...
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How does one bring mind and matter into a single ontology that accounts for subconscious mind?
How does one define mind and matter coherently... do these categories even make sense in a single framework? I can refer to my consciousness and the contents of my consciousness as "mind", this leaves ...
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