This is a dialogue between a philosopher and a scientist about the scientific explanation of consciousness. What is consciousness? Does it admit of scientific explanation? If so, what must a scientific theory of consciousness be like in order to provide us with a satisfying explanation of its explanandum? And what types of entities might such a theory acknowledge as being conscious? Philosopher...
The community of naturalists accepts that it is intuitively puzzling how phenomenal consciousness with its diaphanous texture could have emerged from matter and how it can now be realized in an abundance of sentient beings. Yet the prevailing consensus, with some notable exceptions, is that consciousness, like life, must have emerged diachronically from matter fi nding its way into new kinds of...
Does Yoga Induce Metaphysical Hallucinations?Interdisciplinarity at the Edge: Comments on Evan Thompson’s Waking, Dreaming, Being Owen Flanagan (bio) Waking, Dreaming, Being is an unusual book in many ways. I mention two. First, in some ways it is a memoir. Few philosophers started as a child doing the sort of philosophy that they did as a grown-up. Evan did. Evan grew up in the intellectually...
A noted philosopher proposes a naturalistic (rather than supernaturalistic) way to solve the "really hard problem": how to live in a meaningful way—how to live a life that really matters—even as a finite material being living in a material world. If consciousness is "the hard problem" in mind science—explaining how the amazing private world of consciousness emerges from neuronal activity—then...