Philosophy of Science and Technology
January 1, 2022
V. Lektorsky, Ekaterina A. Alekseeva, N. Emelyanova et al.
7 citations
A round-table discussion held in 2020 marked the 70th anniversary of Alan Turing's seminal paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Speakers examined how artificial intelligence research informs understanding of human consciousness and natural intelligence, and weighed both opportunities and risks of deploying AI in education, politics, and social communication. The discussion underscored the need for renewed philosophical analysis of Turing's work in light of contemporary digital challenges and advances in artificial intellectual systems.
Philosophy of Science and Technology
June 1, 2024
Julia Morkina
1 citation
Contradictions in the philosophy of artificial intelligence arise from a lack of reflection on general philosophical foundations, particularly the concepts of consciousness and 'other consciousness.' An epistemological gap inevitably exists between the external behavior of another entity and the observer's interpretation of that behavior as evidence of internal conscious contents. Phenomenological manifestations of one's own consciousness and those of another are not theoretically correlated. The concept of consciousness is antinomic: purely philosophical reasoning cannot determine its presence or absence in a system such as the self, another person, or AI. Nevertheless, practical activity and communication require practical ways of conceptualizing consciousness, including intuition, empathy, and attribution.
Philosophy of Science and Technology
January 1, 2022
T. Rockmore
1 citation
This article traces V.A. Lektorsky's evolving philosophical position on the debate between constructivism and realism, from his early dialectical materialism to a post-Marxist variant of realism. Lektorsky's later realism draws on cognitive science, rejecting the computational model of cognition in favor of enactivism, which emphasizes the knowing subject's physical body as actively embedded in and interacting with its environment. The analysis reconstructs two stages in Lektorsky's work on epistemological realism, examines the arguments for his conception of "constructive" or "activity" realism, and evaluates their merits within the broader European philosophical tradition.
Philosophy of Science and Technology
June 16, 2026
Aleksandr V. Katunin
The article analyzes the relationship between the cognitive unconscious, phenomenal consciousness (subjective experience), and access consciousness (information available for behavioral control and verbal reporting), using N. Block's distinction as a framework. It traces conceptual origins from Descartes and Leibniz through psychoanalysis and the cognitive turn, where the unconscious became understood as automatic information processing influencing behavior, emotions, and thinking without awareness. Experiments with subliminal perception, inattentional blindness, and blindsight demonstrate difficulty correlating neural processing with subjective experience, highlighting attention's role as a filter.
Philosophy of Science and Technology
December 12, 2025
Igor F. Mikhailov
Consciousness is examined as a mechanism that helps living systems maintain a stable, non-equilibrium state by continuously generating and updating predictions based on sensory input. Organisms operate as probabilistic models that minimize prediction errors and optimize interaction with the environment. The article discusses Bayesian cognitive science, applying principles of Bayesian inference to understand cognitive processes, and shows how predictive processing and free energy minimization contribute to innovative theories of consciousness. It provides a brief overview of existing theories that derive consciousness from hierarchical Bayesian inference, and outlines aspects for a future unified theory, emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach.
Philosophy of Science and Technology
July 4, 2021
Андрей Андреевич Гусев
The phenomenal character of conscious experience—what it feels like to see red or taste coffee—resists naturalistic explanation. Qualia realism, a non-naturalistic view, treats these qualities as non-representational properties (mental paint). The author shows that G. Harman's influential argument against qualia realism fails because it redefines qualia in terms of mental paint, replacing the original thesis. Drawing on A. Kind's epistemic dimension, the author proposes a new transparency argument: introspective analysis reveals that qualia are theoretical objects that do not fulfill their explanatory role, undermining metaphysical arguments against reductionism. Representationalism also faces internal problems, so direct realism is offered as a better alternative, compatible with the transparency thesis and naturalism.
Philosophy of Science and Technology
January 1, 2020
T.O. Provolovich
A methodological analysis of S. Dehaene's global neural workspace theory argues that philosophical theories of consciousness lack experimentally confirmed data, while concepts like wakefulness and attention describe unconscious processes rather than consciousness. Dehaene proposes an empirically based approach to identify neural correlates that track a stimulus's transition from unconscious to conscious processing. His team offers four such correlates, or 'signatures' of consciousness; the last shows activity shifting from specialized brain regions to the entire neural network. Dehaene predicts that advancing neuroscientific methods will eventually enable 'mind reading'—reproducing conscious states on artificial systems. The theory extends B. Baars's late-20th-century ideas rather than offering a fundamentally new approach. The article identifies misconceptions in neurobiological theories and outlines research directions for consciousness and brain as interrelated parts.