How to Really Solve the Mind-Body Problem (1)

Abstract: By supporting the idea of a sharp separation between sensation and perception to solve the mind-body problem, Nicholas Humphrey solves some difficult questions but creates others that are insoluble. It thus opens the door to a more complete solution, which retains the need for a dual view of the problem, without making a summary … Read more

Neurocognitive Mechanisms by Gualtiero Piccinini, critical review

Abstract: Neurocognitive Mechanisms (2020), by Gualtiero Piccinini, is a philosophical and neuroscientific work, seeking to ground cognition and its phenomena in a comprehensive neurocomputational theory. But the philosophical treatment is wrong. The introduction of “aspects” of a single level of reality also introduces something that looks independently of that single level. We fall back on … Read more

Compare theories of consciousness?

Striking spirit What is immediately striking about the theories of consciousness is that they don’t look alike at all. Of course we group them into major fields, scientific, religious, philosophical, but each group is heterogeneous. Among scientists, disciplines as diverse as neuroscience, complexity, and quantum physics compete for copyrights on consciousness. Every mystic wants to … Read more

Explaining consciousness as a phenomenon

Abstract: Can we explain consciousness as a phenomenon today? The problem is already rooted in matter: why do unexpected properties arise from certain physical organizations? Important subsidiary remark: these properties only appear at something at least as complex. It is therefore impossible to reduce the points of view of the constitution and the emergence to each other. It is in this opposition that a fragment of consciousness is born, whose planes are surimposed as reality becomes more complex, first in the material levels of information, then virtual in the depth of neural networks. Each level of reality constructs its own bidirectional interaction, the one that constitutes and the one that experiences its constitution. The higher the complexity, the richer and deeper the experienced phenomenon.

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Mental hierarchy supported by graph theory

Abstract : The 1st part of the article summarizes the theory of mind called Stratium, the only one to date to fully explain consciousness even in its phenomenal aspect. If you already know it, jump straight to the 2nd part, which explains the nature of the new mathematical proof fleshing out graph theory. The supposed regularity of phase transitions in very large graphs is confirmed and allows predictions about their behavior. Part 3 explains how Stratium is strengthened as a model of the mind by this evidence. Phase transitions are the potential support for the symbolic coding of information by neural groups, as well as its hierarchical nesting, from 1st rank neurons to the workspace of consciousness.

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Controversy between Hobbes and Descartes over consciousness

The origins of the monism/dualism conflict For Hobbes, physiological processes and mental subjectivity are two sides of the same reality. Subjectivity is the brain’s reaction to pressure transmitted by nerves. On the other hand, for Descartes, it cannot be explained as an effect of the bodily process. By virtue of what magic would this physical … Read more

Stratium (theory of mind)

Abstract: Stratium is a theory of mind as a multi-tiered system adding layers of meaning. There is no homunculus to read the result, making it necessary to say that these levels themselves read their constitution and “thicken”, degree by degree, the phenomenon called “consciousness”. To this teleological and functional theory is added an ontological theory, showing how the networks are anatomically concentrated at the base of the neural hierarchy, and very dispersed at the upper levels. ‘Stratium’ is a contraction of ‘strata’ and ‘atrium’.

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Feeling and knowing, by Antonio Damasio

Finally something new? I grasped Antonio Damasio’s latest book with great excitement. Judge instead! In subtitle: “Making minds conscious“. What could be more enticing for the one who has been waiting for the explanation for a very long time, desperate to the point of having developed his own theory? I dive. I soon become disillusioned. … Read more

Awakening, consciousness, synchronization

Awake without being conscious? It is possible. Situation of the epileptic in grand mal seizure. He is apparently awake but absent, uncontrolled, left to autonomous muscle spasms. Conversely, consciousness is impossible without awakening. These statements attribute to consciousness two additional conditions, in addition to awakening: 1) Mind control over the body and the environment. 2) … Read more

What's between us?

Our ties are surimpositions of concepts What’s between us? Question asked to Parisians on the façade of the Pompidou Center by the artist Tim Etchells. Octave Larmagnac-Matheron studies it in Philomag. He sees between us language, ethics, politics, cosmos. However, just as energy surveys list its forms without saying what it is in substance, Octave … Read more