The double look on complex dimension
Abstract: What assumptions should be kept to solve the mind-body problem? We need a reality unified by its relationships —a term to be preferred to ‘monistic’— but which leaves its relational levels owners of their frameworks. Indeed their characteristics differ: definition of ‘elements’, elementary time, energy, causal and temporal arrows. Connecting the levels implies the … Read more
Abstract: The difficulty of the mind-body problem does not come from the brain itself, which is conscious before our eyes, but from the apparent incompatibility between the two ways of looking at it, the physicalist/ontological and the spiritualist/phenomenological. After clarifying the notion of level of explanation, a level that varies according to the authors, I … Read more
Abstract: Nicholas Humphrey’s solution to the brain-mind problem, discussed in the previous article, is to see sensations as directly experienced activities and not objects of experience. He vigorously separates sensation and perception, the former as a sensible experience and seat of the phenomenon of consciousness, the latter as an interpretation of the external world. What … Read more
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
Philosophical vocabulary is a real semantic mess! The word is not too strong. It is almost easier to learn a foreign language. Look for example at the word ‘being’; It designates both a phenomenon and a representation. Between ‘I am’ – an unshareable experience – and ‘he is’ – an infinitely divided opinion – there … Read more
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
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
Free yourself from the domination of numbers Numbers are ubiquitous in the contemporary world. If they have had such success, it is because they perfectly model multiple aspects of physical reality. Numbers are a means of dominating matter. This apparent physical universality has rubbed off on our psychology. Social relations are invaded by numbers because … Read more
Attacking causal cognition Lara Kirfel and Tobias Gerstenberg support the pluralism of methods for studying causal cognition. They quote Feyerabend: « If we want to understand nature, if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods, and not just a small selection of them. » Paul Feyerabend, Against Method / … Read more
A brain that gets brushed! A baby looks at a brush. The object has no meaning for her. She sketches one when her mother grabs it to straighten her hair. Years later, the brush is part of a rich mental universe of utensils with well-defined functions. It proposes itself to the consciousness of the baby … Read more