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 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.
Philosophy of mind
The interest of pain
Pain is an exciting topic for the philosophy of mind. Its reality and meaning are redefined in this article on the frequent confusion between pain-injury and pain-repair: Abstract: Pain-repair is often confused with pain-injury. However, the attitudes to follow are very different. In search of the meaning of our feelings, let us not forget that … Read more
What is the difference between real and virtual?
Abstract: Virtualism is a wave that overwhelms the real. There is no other reality than the personal one of our mental universe. The metaverse is riding this wave, promising to extend our pseudo-reality rather than replace it. Wouldn’t there be any point in separating the real from the virtual? The article shows that we are intimately designed to make this distinction and that to lose it would be an impoverishment of identity. Virtualism is only the great return of solipsism, in a world never sufficiently controlled so that the independence of the real can be forgotten.
Can I freely put the ball in the hole?
Should I have or could I have? A golfer, his feet well camped on the green, tries to put his ball in the hole. He completely misses this putt, usually easy for a player of his level. Which brings us to the question of his free will. If he has one, was it on vacation … Read more
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
Somma (definition)
The definition of Somma is simple: it is the experience of feeling one’s body without paying attention to it. Somma is what persists in your conscious impression when you strive to clear your mind, are not focused on anything physical or abstract, inside or outside. You have not ceased to exist. You are your Somma. … Read more
Contemporary information flows, a paradoxical reduction in exchanges
An upheaval, really? Reading the article The Great Inversion, supposed to reveal a major upheaval in our society, many of you will have pouted. “What does he announce? Media dominance is a truism. Propaganda has been around for centuries. Debord has already taken care of denouncing the society of the spectacle. Information flows come and … Read more
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
The reason relativized by Dan Sperber
Good interview with Dan Sperber in Philomag Synthesis of the ideas of this little-known author: 1) The opposition between nature and culture of Lévi-Strauss is to be qualified. The mind is not a blank page on which cultural knowledge would be inscribed. It is structured in a complex way from birth. 2) The epidemiology of … Read more
The suffering of whom, of what?
A highly sensitive concept While our fundamental concepts are constantly advancing, for the most part, that of suffering is in a kind of sacred tabernacle. It is extracted only to contemplate it with fear and immediately place it back in the same place. Its meaning is so repulsive that the phobia extends to the container … Read more