Consciousness

A collection of 59 posts

brain

What happens to the soul if the brain is brought back to life?

A few years ago, a neuroscience team at Yale University performed some groundbreaking studies on pig brains, showing that after the animal is dead, if the brain is cooled immediately, not all the brain cells die. In fact, they are quite resilient and can be resuscitated if they are provided

Consciousness

If Consciousness Were a Noun...

If consciousness were a noun, your mind would be frozen. You'd be a vegetable.Discuss. Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A Tippling Philosopher You can also buy me a cuppa. Or buy some of my awesome ATP merchandise! Please... It justifies me continuing to

Consciousness

2nd Covid Jab, My Multiple Sclerosis, and Qualia

This is what I just wrote on Facebook with regard to having my second covid jab yesterday and how it interacted with my multiple sclerosis: Wow. Oof. I had my second Astra Zeneca vaccine yesterday at about midday. That was a wild night. I thought I'd share my

Consciousness

Idealism Is More Parsimonious?

Holy crap. So we are now positing that the entire universe “suffers” from a multiple personality disorder because we need to solve a non-problem that we created ourselves out of stubbornly postulating that there is something special and quasi-magical about consciousness. — Massimo Pigliucci Recently, I have been looking into idealism

Consciousness

Other Minds and Problems with Idealism

Time to get back to some philosophy. Today we will be briefly looking at the position of idealism as developed by many German philosophers, but including the famous Bishop Berkeley and then taken on by Moravian philosopher Edmund Husserl and other Continental philosophers. Defining our terms Here are some pretty

atheism

God is Not an Old Man in the Sky. Now What?

Dana Horton is back with another look at atheism and spirituality, this time concentrating on what we do with the idea of God. Over to him: God is Not an Old Man in the Sky. Now What? (5-minute read) We often repeat in our posts that God is not an

Consciousness

Let’s All Not Look at the Moon and See What Happens

Here's another guest post from Dana Horton - thanks! Let’s All Not Look at the Moon and See What Happens (5 minute read) Last week we speculated on whether the Universe came from an explosion, a creator, or an emanation. This week let’s take up whether

Consciousness

An Immaterial Mind Causing the Universe

The other day, I was sent an argument by a commenter on my video discussing the Kalam Cosmological Argument. For the full details of his arguments, please see my post here. William Lane Craig uses an extension to his Kalam Cosmological Argument to conclude that this an immaterial mind, qua

abstracts

Criticising Craig's Personal Mind As Causing the Universe

Here is an argument that a commenter on one of my recent YouTube videos on the Kalam Cosmological Argument gave me. It's actually something I have argued elsewhere (possibly even mentioning in that Kalam series itself). Before I hand over to him, let me remind you of the

Consciousness

The Argument from Reason Boils down to an Argument from Intentionality or Consciousness

As I stated in order to introduce the Argument from Reason in my first post in this series (concerning doxastic voluntarism): CS Lewis fashioned the Argument from Reason and it has since been taken on by Christian philosophers and apologists such as Alvin Plantinga (in the form of the Evolutionary

Consciousness

On the Argument from Reason: Rationality

As I stated in order to introduce the Argument from Reason in my first post in this series (concerning doxastic voluntarism): CS Lewis fashioned the Argument from Reason and it has since been taken on by Christian philosophers and apologists such as Alvin Plantinga (in the form of the Evolutionary

Consciousness

"Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved"

Bernard Kastrup, at iai, recently wrote an article setting out that consciousness, as far as strict materialists are concerned, cannot have evolved: The overwhelmingly validated theory of evolution tells us that the functions performed by our organs arose from associated increases in survival fitness. For instance, the bile produced by

Abiogenesis

Life as an Emergent Property, and Rocks

Abiogenesis and wondering how life started for the very first time here on Earth, is endlessly fascinating. Believers prefer to plug the hole of ignorance with the ever-useful GodPutty™. GodPutty™ plugs any holes in a way that leaves you never wanting for answers again. It's the perfect antidote

Consciousness

Have Scientists Solved Consciousness? Introducing the PCM, a scientific theory of consciousness.

I am a big fan of Skydivephil and his videos with his wife. They usually create videos on the universe and cosmology. This is a slight step away from their usual, but it is no less quality. Check it out: Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A

Consciousness

Petri Dish Minibrains Make Brain Waves After Months in a Dish

This is fascinating stuff. After months sitting in petri dishes, groups of cells called organoids - minibrains for want of a better term - kick into action along a timeframe similar to developing fetal brains. As npr report: And clusters of lab-grown human brain cells known as organoids seem to

Consciousness

Cheating & Heroism: Automaticity vs Free Will

In this article, I am going to talk about praiseworthiness and blameworthiness with regard to terrorism and is something a little bit opposite to that idea, cheating. It is part of our human nature, or as PF Strawson says, our reactive attitudes, that we praise heroes to the hilt and

brain

We Are All Meatbots

This is a guest post (reposting from his own website) from Wayne Borean for your delectation. A little Monday morning something. Hehe. OK, so I’m feeling crazier than usual, and I’m probably going to upset a lot of people with this, but humans are partially self-programming MeatBots. What

Consciousness

Qualia Are Physical Qualities...

Qualia – what are they? Qualia (sing. quale) are subjective experiences, in simple terms. Whether it be looking and experience a colour, such as having the subjective experience of redness, or any other such experiential event. These are qualities of ‘phenomenal character’. There are other, more restrictive definitions which are worth

Consciousness

Brain Scans Predicting Social Bonds

This was a fascinating article from the New York Times that looks at the predictive power of brain scans. New research suggests the roots of friendship extend even deeper than previously suspected. Scientists have found that the brains of close friends respond in remarkably similar ways as they view a

Consciousness

The More We Evolve, The Less We Need God

This is a very recent IntelligenceSquared debate between Berlin and Shermer on the one side and Chopra and Kumar on the other. I am yet to watch it but am led to believe it was a strong win to the skeptics. For the Motion: Heather Berlin, Cognitive Neuroscientist Michael Shermer,

Consciousness

Interactionism, Descartes and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia

René Descartes was famous for his belief in substance dualism - that the mind and the body are two separate substances and, in his view, they interacted with each other in the pineal gland. Forgetting the nonsense of the pineal gland being where it all happens, the general notion of

Consciousness

My Glasses, Perception and Consciousness

The other day, I had to get my glasses reglazed and it meant that I was walking around town for about an hour without my glasses. I have worn glasses since I was four years old. I am now considerably older and have grown rather accustomed to wearing my glasses

brain

Death And Birthdays: Guest Post by Dan Hughes

Dan Hughes has kindly allowed me to repost this interesting piece by him, from his own blog (I have changed some images for copyright reasons). Check it out and get the discussion going! Death and Birthdays Despite what you may believe, you don’t actually have a birthday and you

Consciousness

Marvelling at the Brain

As I wrote some time back. The other day, I was getting really frustrated with my manual coordination. I was leaving school on a Sunday after doing some work and was trying to locate a particular key on a keyring. With one hand. Whilst holding three bags with my other

Consciousness

Starlings, Televisions and Consciousness; The Emergent Sum Is Greater than Its Parts.

I was watching the stunningly good Planet Earth II tonight and again saw the amazing flocks of starlings and their murmurations. Here is an idea of what they do (I couldn't get the Planet Earth footage): This got me thinking about emergent properties, when things are created that