Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagPeter Halligan

The doctor checks up x-ray film of the brain by ct scan brain at the patient's room hospital. Doctor radiologists looking at x-ray images

It’s Becoming Clearer That the Mind Is Not the Brain

The “science of consciousness” not only has no workable materialist theory but it’s unclear what such a theory should look like or explain

Not surprisingly, given that philosopher David Chalmers won the famous wager with neuroscientist Christof Koch last month, the topic of consciousness has been in the news a lot. In 25 years of research, no one has found a specific consciousness circuit, spot, wave, or whatever in the brain. Consciousness is still the “Hard Problem of Consciousness.” At Vox, Oshan Jarow, a writer who knows the field, tells us that the bet has been renewed for another 25 years and offers an interpretation of why scientists haven’t “cracked” consciousness so far: “we still lack a definitive, falsifiable explanation. We even lack consensus on whether one may ever exist.” Eventually, in this view, the field might coalesce around a unified theory and Read More ›

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A pile of photographic memories with a pancake photo

How Can Consciousness Be a Material Thing?

Maybe it can’t. But materialist philosophers face starkly limited choices in how to view consciousness
In analytical philosopher Galen Strawson’s opinion, our childhood memories of pancakes on Saturday, for example, are—and must be—"wholly physical." Read More ›