
CategoryPhilosophy of Mind


If Humans Were Just Animals, We Would Not Help Animals
Whether we like it or not, the gulf fixed between humans and other animals is what makes it possible for us to reject cruelty to animals
Is the New Natural-Sounding Chatbot GPT4.o Breaking a Barrier?
It depends on what barrier you mean, says philosopher of technology Shannon Vallor. It could harm vulnerable people by convincing them that it is a person
Does a Lack of Empathy Make You More Efficient?
Robocop (2014) tests out that thesis when Murphy, now a robocop, is matched against actual robots
Could Neanderthals Speak? It Depends on Who You Talk To
Theorists who will, sadly, never converse with a living Neanderthal imagine things they could and couldn’t do linguistically
Neuroscientist: The “I” of Consciousness Cannot Be Explained Away
Skeptical philosopher David Hume tried it and, Raymond Tallis says, things collapsed almost immediately
What Does It Mean To Say That “Lobsters Are Conscious”?
The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, signed in April by 40 researchers, posits a “realistic possibility of conscious experience” in all vertebrates and many invertebrates
A Man, A Boat, and a Goat — and a Chatbot!
Forty-five years ago, Douglas Hofstadter noted a key problem with AI: It can’t do the astonishing things our brains do, as chatbots reveal when asked to solve puzzles
Astrophysicist: Electricity Can Account For Human Consciousness
Ethan Siegel set out to show that there is no design in the universe and that included reducing consciousness to electricity, with the details still to be ironed out
Science Team Argues, Consciousness Came Before Life
Can the authors take issue with Darwinian evolution claims while maintaining a materialist stance?
Why Did Our Ancestors Start Drawing in Caves and Making Jewelry?
For that matter, why did they choose to develop artworks around fossilized dinosaur footprints?
Can an Atheist Believe in Life After Death?
An atheist philosopher makes the case at Closer to Truth
Was Darwinian Philosopher Daniel Dennett the End of an Era?
Dennett’s image of the human mind as a user-illusion was very fashionable but it never made any sense
Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than a human in 2025: Why he’s wrong
The superficial glibness of LLMs is a wonderful example of the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Are Near-Death Experiences Just Another Branch of Research Now?
We should hope so because there are a number of interesting allied research areas that would be better studied without preexisting prejudice against NDEs
Are Mind vs. Brain Issues Going Mainstream?
Capitol Hill lobby HillFaith has been sponsoring discussion of the immateriality of the mind in recent years
About the claim that chatbot Claude 3 showed self-awareness…
Has anyone noticed the resemblance between the conviction that an AI project thinks like a human and that extraterrestrials are visiting us?
How Is Intentionality Embedded in the Universe?
All efforts to extinguish intentionality and morality only serve to further establish their inescapable reality
Consciousness Observes Different Laws From Physics
At Closer to Truth, British philosopher and pastor Keith Ward provides an example to host Robert Lawrence Kuhn