hard problem (of consciousness)

How to Really Solve the Mind-Body Problem (5)

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Abstract: The complex dimension has two axes: horizontal complexion —our classic systems of interacting elements and their models— and vertical complexion —overlapping systems, an elementary constituting a superior. A ‘platist’ trend sees this vertical axis as an illusion. I show that it is in fact a dualistic dead end excluding our mind. The metaphor of … Read more

How to Really Solve the Mind-Body Problem (4)

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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

How to Really Solve the Mind-Body Problem (3)

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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

How to Really Solve the Mind-Body Problem (2)

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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

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

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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

Compare theories of consciousness?

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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

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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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Controversy between Hobbes and Descartes over consciousness

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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)

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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

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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