Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Michael Silberstein
A.I. isn't conscious because consciousness requires properties that only biological agents possess, which A.I. lacks. What A.I. lacks that is relevant for consciousness is not predictive processing or the minimization of free energy. A.I. lacks embodiment, direct coupling with the environment, multiscale complexity, and self-organization, e.g., plasticity, degeneracy, robustness, and the...
Rethinking Emergence
March 17, 2026
Michael Silberstein
Abstract The hard problem of consciousness has historically been a major driver of discussions pertaining to emergence. As the only forms of emergence on offer in these discussions were strong and weak emergence, very little progress was made. Herein a new type of emergence is offered to move forwards. Contextual emergence (CE) holds that the world is structured as follows: properties and...
Frontiers in Psychology
May 4, 2023
Michael Silberstein
It is important to begin by distinguishing two types of questions. There are physical/metaphysical questions and there are phenomenological or experiential questions. Traditionally, starting with Husserl, in a neo-Kantian transcendental spirit, the discipline of phenomenology has sought to "bracket" questions of experience from metaphysical questions. There are those who believe however that...
Journal of Multiscale Neuroscience
March 30, 2023
Michael Silberstein
3 citations
There is growing evidence that brain processes involve multiscale overlapping networks and that the mapping between such neural processes and cognitive functions is many-to-many. So, the answer to the question what spatiotemporal scales in the brain are most relevant for cognition, action, experience, etc., is that several inextricably interconnected and integrated scales are relevant. There is...
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
July 18, 2022
Michael Silberstein, William Stuckey
Abstract: Recent experiments (gedanken or otherwise) and theorems in quantum mechanics (QM) have led many people to claim that QM is not compatible with determinate and intersubjectively consistent experience, what some call the “absoluteness” of observed events; examples include new iterations on Wigner’s friend and delayed choice. Herein we provide a realist psi-epistemic take on QM that...
Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
May 14, 2020
Michael Silberstein, William Stuckey
21 citations
Herein we are not interested in merely using dynamical systems theory, graph theory, information theory, etc., to model the relationship between brain dynamics and networks, and various states and degrees of conscious processes. We are interested in the question of how phenomenal conscious experience and fundamental physics are most deeply related. Any attempt to mathematically and formally...
arXiv Preprint Archive
January 28, 2019
Michael Silberstein, William Stuckey
preprint
Recent experiments (gedanken or otherwise) and theorems in quantum mechanics (QM), such as new iterations on Wigner's friend and delayed choice, have led many people to claim that QM is not compatible with determinate and intersubjectively consistent experience (what some call absoluteness of observed events), such as experiences of experimental outcomes. In the case of delayed choice the...
Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science
December 2, 2017
Michael Silberstein
5 citations
It is argued that when it comes to the hard problem of consciousness neutral monism beats out the competition. It is further argued that neutral monism provides a unique route to a novel type of panentheism via Advaita Vedanta Hinduism.
Topics in Cognitive Science
2012
Michael Silberstein, Anthony Chemero
The complex systems approach to cognitive science invites a new understanding of extended cognitive systems. According to this understanding, extended cognitive systems are heterogenous, composed of brain, body, and niche, non-linearly coupled to one another. This view of cognitive systems, as non-linearly coupled brain-body-niche systems, promises conceptual and methodological advances. In...
Philosophical Psychology
August 1, 2011
Michael Silberstein
15 citations
Beyond Reduction: Philosophy of Mind and Post-Reduction Philosophy of Science Steven Horst New York: Oxford University Press, 2007 223 pages, ISBN: 0195317114 (hbk); $60.00 It seems to me that ther...
Oxford University Press eBooks
May 15, 2008
Michael Silberstein
38 citations
The first section characterises the kind of emergence defended in this chapter and situates it largely in the enactive paradigm of consciousness and cognition. The second section begins to cast doubt on physicalism and related doctrines in philosophy of mind that speak against ontological emergence. In the process, it becomes clear that ontological emergence cum enactivism is philosophically...