Physicalism

This paper provides an initial, multidimensional map of the complex relationships among consciousness, mind, brain and the external world in a way that follows both the contours of everyday experience and the findings of science. It then demonstrates how this reflexive monist map can be used to evaluate the utility and resolve some of the oppositions of the many other “isms” that currently populate consciousness studies. While no conventional, one-dimensional “ism” such as physicalism can do justice to this web of relationships, physicalism, functionalism, dualism, neutral monism, and dual-aspect monism can all be seen to provide useful ways of understanding different aspects of the relationships among consciousness, mind, brain and the external world when these are viewed in either a first- or a third-person way from within this web of relationships by sentient creatures such as ourselves. For example, physicalism and functionalism provide a useful understanding of consciousness, mind, brain and external world when viewed from a third-person perspective, while neutral monism provides a useful way of understanding first- versus third-person views of external phenomena. On the other hand, dual-aspect monism provides a useful way of understanding first- versus third-person views of mind, including Eastern versus Western views of mind.  Dual-aspect monism also provides a useful understanding of the “unconscious ground of being” that gives rise to, supports and embeds all these observable phenomena. For an integrated understanding one needs to understand how these phenomena and relationships combine into an integrated whole.

Understanding Consciousness, second edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense.

Building on the widely praised first edition of the book, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last ten years.

The book is divided into three parts; Part I surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part II reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part III deals with fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers.

Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.

The conservation of energy law, a law of physics that states that the total energy of any closed system is always conserved, is a bedrock principle that has achieved both broad theoretical and experimental support. Yet if interactive dualism is correct, it is thought that the mind can affect physical objects in violation of the conservation of energy. Thus, some claim, the conservation of energy grounds an argument for physicalism. Although critics of the argument focus on the implausibility of causation requiring the transference of energy, I argue that even if causation requires the transference of energy, once we accept the other required premises of the argument that lie behind any supposed argument from the conservation of energy the law of the conservation of energy is revealed as irrelevant to the question of whether the mental is physical.

[EN] This article argues that Rorty's philosophy of mind is possible as a metaphilosophical project. It trespasses the limits of physicalism and yet opposes philosophical scholasticism. Rorty's physicalism is grounded on a metaphilosophical motivation and aims to show that physical descriptions protect against unjustified pretensions to a transcendentally engaged, considered to be objective, universally applicable knowing. while defending Rorty's eliminativism from criticism aimed at his presupposed scientism, the article discusses the possibility of "mind" as an empty concept. the article concludes that, in the context of Rorty's philosophy, the concept of mind should be considered as idealistic and naturalistic, not indicating any concrete content and therefore immune to materialistic criticism. However, despite the physical vocabulary aimed at expanding the problematics of mind, the full self-knowledge at which the scientific knowledge is aimed is unachieved. This leaves space for philosophical, theological and other descriptions of mind.

[LT] Šiame straipsnyje teigiama, kad Rorty sąmonės filosofija įmanoma kaip metafilosofinis projektas, pranoks-tantis fizikalizmo ribas ir oponuojantis filosofinei scholastikai. Įrodinėjama, kad Rorty fizikalizmą grindžia metafilosofinė motyvacija – siekis parodyti, kad fizikinės deskripcijos apsaugo nuo nepamatuotos preten-zijos į transcendentiškai angažuotą, neva objektyvų ir universaliai taikomą žinojimą. svarstoma " sąmonės " , kaip tuščios koncepcijos, galimybė, kartu ginant Rorty eliminatyvizmą nuo kritikos dėl neva esančio pasi-davimo scientizmui. Prieinama išvada, kad Rorty filosofijos kontekste sąmonės koncepcija laikytina idea-listų ir natūralistų konstrukcija, nenurodančia jokio konkretaus turinio, todėl neatlaikančia materialistų kritikos. Vis dėlto net ir pasitelkus fizikinį žodyną sąmonės problematikai išskleisti, ši išsklaida nesuteikia visiško savęs pažinimo, į kurį galėtų pretenduoti mokslinis žinojimas – tam padeda filosofinės, teologinės ir kitokios deskripcijos.

Substance-dualist interactionism faces two sorts of challenge. One is empirical, involving the alleged incompatibility between interactionism and the supposed closure of the physical world. Although widely considered successful, this challenge gives no reason for preferring materialism to dualism. The other sort of challenge holds that interactionism is conceptually impossible. The historically influential version of the conceptual challenge is now discredited, but recent discussions by Chomsky and by Crane and Mellor suggest a new version. In brief, the argument is that anything that interacts causally with physical things would have to be sanctioned by physics, and anything sanctioned by physics is ipso facto (as a matter of conceptual necessity) physical. I focus on the second premise. I show that plausible arguments for it are in fact fallacious and that counterexamples undermine it. Thus the argument fails: substance-dualist interactionism cannot be ruled out on conceptual grounds alone.

"Everything is in motion. "Inertness" arises from (approximative) repetition, that is, through rotation or an alternation that delineates a focus of consciousness. This focus of consciousness, in turn, must also move/alternate (the two differ only in continuity). If its alternation seems to go too far - physically, psychically or intellectually - it reaches into the
subconscious. In this way, interconnection is established by the alternation of the focus of consciousness. Therefore, in a world in which everything is interconnected, all focuses must
reciprocally transition into each other. "Reality" is a common "goal", a focus which all participants can switch into and which is conscious to them as such, as a potential one. Its
"degree of reality" is the probability of its fully becoming conscious (or more simply: its current degree of consciousness). Thus, a reality is created when all participants increase its probability or, respectively, their consciousness of it."

This book is about the identity theory in contemporary philosophy of mind containing a long essay of mine and the italian translations of some remarkable contributions by Place. Armstrong, Smart, Lewis, McGinn, Jackson. The book has been published by Le Monnier, Firenze, 2005.

I will analyze the Frankfurtian strategy confronting it with the Non-Reductive Physicalist account about mind. The goal is to show how Frankfurt, in trying to achieve some kind of plausibility, does not only makes use of the deterministic resources embodied in the counterexample, but also appeals to reader's freedom experience as a kind of reflection that requires the presence of alternate possibilities.

After 1900, the selective breeding of a few standard animals for research in the life sciences changed the way science was done. Among the pervasive changes was a transformation in scientists' assumptions about relationship between diversity and generality.

En este artículo abordo críticamente la aseveración de David Papineau según la cual la evidencia fisiológica acumulada es suficiente para adoptar razonablemente el Principio del Cierre Causal de lo Físico y la vía negativa, viz. entender físico como no-mental, como solución al dilema de Hempel. Comenzaremos restando fuerza a tal afirmación revisando el trabajo de W. Penfield y J. Eccles, dos importantes neurocientíficos y declarados dualistas. No obstante, luego nos centraremos en el trabajo de B. Libet en el que se demostraría que los movimientos voluntarios están realmente determinados por causas enteramente (neuro)fisiológicas, lo cual constituiría una pieza fundamental de evidencia a favor de Papineau. Nuestro análisis mostrará que no se siguen tales conclusiones. Esto tendrá consecuencias negativas para el Principio del Cierre Causal de lo Físico y revelará una grave tensión al interior del Argumento Causal para el Fisicalismo del cual el mencionado principio es premisa clave.

In this article, I critically address David Papineau's assertion that accumulated physiological evidence is sufficient to reasonably adopt the principle of the Causal Closure of the Physical and the via negativa, viz. to understand 'physical' as 'non-mental', as a solution to Hempel's dilemma. We will start lowering the strength of his view by reviewing the work of W. Penfield and J. Eccles, two important neurophysiologists and declared dualists. However, we will then focus on the work of B. Libet in which it is purportedly shown that voluntary movements are really determined by entirely (neuro)physiological causes, which would constitute a fundamental piece of evidence in favour of Papineau. Our analysis will reveal that such conclusions do not follow. This will have negative consequences for the Causal Closure principle and will reveal a serious tension within the Causal Argument for Physicalism of which the aforementioned principle is a key premise.

I shall argue in this article that there are certain objectual and methodological boundaries imposed by the nature of physics that all formulations of physicalism based on physical theories should respect. Therefore, empirical physicalism – i.e., the sort of physicalism that is eager to accept all the entities included in some future, ideal and complete physical theory and all entities dependent on them (see Jeffrey Poland and Janice Dowell) – is already committed to the exclusion of certain sorts of entities from its ontological inventory and it is far less tolerant than one might expect. After having presented my argument, I shall describe four plausible boundaries to what can be studied by physics. The boundaries will contribute to constructing a new version of physicalism, i.e., physics physicalism, whose acceptance is entailed by the acceptance of empirical physicalism. Finally, I shall briefly deal with three objections against my strategy and I shall evaluate the consequences of the acceptance of my conclusions for both physicalists and non-physicalists.

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.

The phychoneural identity theory is often taken to be rebutted by the phenomenon known as multiple realization. In this paper i assess whether multiple realization does in fact contradict the identity theory, and whether multiple realizability is even a legitimate phenomenon at all.

Special sciences (such as biology, psychology, economics) describe various regularities holding at some high macroscopic level. One of the central questions concerning these macroscopic regularities is how they are related to the laws of physics governing the underlying microscopic physical reality. In this paper we show how a macroscopic regularity may emerge from an underlying micro- scopic structure, and how the appearance of multiple realizability of the special sciences by physics comes about in a reductionist-physicalist framework. On this basis we explain how complexity at the high level can arise due to a sort of harmony between the microscopic dynamics and observer-dependent macroscopic properties. We show that observer-dependent properties, which underlie the emergence of macroscopic properties and of macroscopic complexity, are objective physical facts. We argue that such physical properties remove the mystery from the multiple realizability of special sciences’ kinds, since the latter are grounded in shared physical properties. Finally we explain how and in what sense in our reductive physicalist approach the special sciences are still autonomous after all.

Το άρθρο αυτό αποτελεί την εισήγηση του συγγραφέα στον Τρίτο Κύκλο Διαλέξεων της ομάδας «Γουδί» που συγκρότησαν ακαδημαϊκοί κυρίως της Ιατρικής Σχολής και του Τμήματος Νοσηλευτικής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών σε συνεργασία με μια ομάδα εργασίας του τομέα φιλοσοφίας του Τμήματος Φιλοσοφίας Παιδαγωγικής και Ψυχολογίας της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών. Το κείμενο παρουσιάστηκε στις 29 Μαρτίου 1995 στα κτήρια της Ιατρικής Σχολής στο Γουδί. Επιχειρείται μία ιχνηλάτηση της κίνησης των ιδεών στο πεδίο της φιλοσοφίας του νου (Philosophy of the mind) που καταλαμβάνει ο φυσικισμός(physicalism)

Suppose that you are faced with the following choice: You will receive a very large sum of money if you were to go into a teleporter.  The teleporter consists of rooms 1 and 2.  When you enter room 1 all of the information about your body gets copied.  Your body is then destroyed.  At the exact time of your body being destroyed, a new body is assembled (by 3D printing) in room 2--exactly like the one destroyed, complete with your mental traits.  Would you do it?

This work advances a theory in the metaphysics of phenomenal consciousness, which the author labels “e-physicalism”. Firstly, he endorses a realist stance towards consciousness and physicalist metaphysics. Secondly, he criticises Strong AI and functionalist views, and claims that consciousness has an internal character. Thirdly, he discusses HOT theories, the unity of consciousness, and holds that the “explanatory gap” is not ontological but epistemological. Fourthly, he argues that consciousness is not a supervenient but an emergent property, not reducible and endowed with original causal powers, with respect to the micro-constituents of the conscious entity. Fifthly, he addresses the “zombie argument” and the “supervenience argument” within the e-physicalism framework. Finally, he elaborates on the claim that phenomenal properties are physical and discusses the “knowledge argument”.

If Pinocchio’s nose grows iff he is thinking a false proposition and he is thinking ‘my nose is growing’, he is thinking a paradoxical proposition (i.e. one that cannot be consistently assigned a truth value) that is empirically testable. But an empirically testable proposition cannot be paradoxical; thus, the truth value of Pinocchio’s thoughts cannot be so correlated with any empirical property, if only Pinocchio is able to perform such a thought. We show how this situation can be used to argue against identity physicalism. We also present other arguments based on the existence of a paradox to exemplify how paradoxes can be harnessed for reasoning in various philosophical areas.

Perhaps even harder than coming up with a new theory of mind is saying something new and important about older theories of mind. Lawrence Shapiro Der vorliegende Band steht unter dem Titel »Moritz Schlick -Ursprünge und Entwicklungen seines Denkens«. Ich werde im Folgenden weniger zu den Ursprüngen als zu den Entwicklungen von Moritz Schlicks Denken beitragen. Dabei verstehe ich »Entwicklungen« in einem Sinn, der sich nicht nur auf Schlicks eigenes Denken bezieht, sondern im Sinne von »Weiterentwicklungen«. Genauer: Es geht mir im Folgenden um Weiterentwicklungen seines Denkens über das Körper-Geist-Problem im Zusammenhang mit der so genannten »Identitätstheorie des Geistes«. Den Untertitel meines Beitrags -»eine Skizze« -nehme ich durchgehend ernst: Ich skizziere zunächst, inwiefern sich eine Variante der Identitätstheorie von anderen Varianten abgrenzen lässt, die ihren Ursprung im Denken Moritz Schlicks hat und die insbesondere von Herbert Feigl weiterentwickelt wurde. Ich nenne diese Variante die »Schlick-Feigl-Variante«. Des Weiteren skizziere ich, welche Rolle identitätstheoretische Überlegungen im Rahmen der gegenwärtigen Position des Physikalismus spielen. Dabei soll Folgendes deutlich werden: Es gibt eine Renaissance der Identitätstheorie, in deren Mittelpunkt jedoch nicht die Schlick-Feigl-Variante, sondern die von mir so genannte »Place-Smart-Variante« steht. Schließlich skizziere ich den Zusammenhang zwischen der Schlick-Feigl-Variante und einer gegenwärtig viel beachteten Position, die neuerdings als »Russell'scher Physikalismus« bezeichnet wird. Ich bin der Auffassung, dass der Russell'sche Physika-

Systematic theologians and Christian philosophers who evaluate a dualist concept of the soul, the self or ‘I’ that survives death often cite biblical scholarship in favour of monist positions. In this article the possible overlap between biblical theology and systematic theology is examined by analysing the critical attitude towards the concept of the soul, or dualism, in contemporary biblical scholarship. First, from a systematic-analytical perspective, dualism and monism as metaphysical positions are distinguished. Next, the way in which the notion of the soul is considered and used by modern exegetes is examined through a sample of contemporary Old Testament and New Testament scholarship on nephesh or psychē. Biblical scholars often make claims about dualism and support monism.

The roots of this monist tendency are explored next. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the dichotomy between the ‘Greek’ soul and the Hebrew, Jewish, or biblical idea of the resurrection of the body entered theology when J. Kögel inserted this opposition into H. Cremer’s influential biblical-theological lexicon. Kögel explicitly rejects the metaphysical category of ‘substance’, associated with the soul. In this way, a metaphysical position is taken and a dogmatic presupposition introduced in biblical scholarship. Correspondingly, the present-day monist tendency can be interpreted as an attempt to avoid metaphysical language. This clouds the fact that physicalism might be assumed by biblical interpreters in their explanation and choice of language.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

Una de las discusiones más intensas en la filosofía de la mente ha tenido como núcleo el problema de las relaciones entre la conciencia (o la experiencia consciente) y la actividad cerebral; la increíble cantidad de propuestas que se ha presentado para zanjar esta discusión va desde las que proponen que la relación conciencia-cerebro es una especie de paralelismo en el que dos reinos ontológicamente distintos (el físico y el mental) simplemente se sincronizan sin afectarse, hasta las propuestas que presentan la experiencia consciente como un fenómeno tan físico como la temperatura, la vida, la digestión, el ADN, o los relámpagos.

In this paper, I aim to show (1) that the principle of energy conservation (PEC) cannot be used as an a priori argument against dualism; (2) that PEC constitutes a problem for physicalism because energy is probably not conserved in brains; and (3) to show that even if energy is conserved in brains, dualism is still the better framework to account for human volitional actions. To do that, I will first formulate a proper a priori version of the widely shared ‘objection from energy conservation’ (OEC). Second, I will refute its central premise, namely that energy is necessarily conserved. I then proceed to “turn the tables” on physicalism, i.e. I seek to show that empirically, energy is probably not conserved in brains, and explore the resources of physicalism to deal with such a scenario, which turn out to be scarce.

This article examines historicism as the expansion of historiography beyond its bounds, analogous to Physicalism, Naturalism, Psychologism, and Scientism. Five senses of historicism are distinguished: Ontological Historicism claims ultimate reality is, and only is, historical. Idiographic historicism considers historiography an empirical science that results in observational descriptions of unique singular events. Introspective historicism considers the epistemology of historiography to be founded on self-knowledge.  Scientistic historicism considers historiography an applied psychology or social science that can expand to overtake the social sciences. Methodological historicism extends the use of historiographic methodologies to unreliable or dependent evidence. The first four historicisms are inconsistent with historiography within bounds and implode. Methodological historicism describes proper historiographic methodologies that are applied out of their proper bounds, but are used in historiography based on the epistemology of testimony and the tracing of the transmission of information from historical event to historiographic evidence.

Key terms: Historicism, philosophy of historiography, Physicalism, Scientism, Epistemology of Testimony, Idiographic science, Introspection, self-knowledge, Neo-Kantian philosophy.

Tesi di laurea triennale in Filosofia, sotto la supervisione del prof. Andrea Zhok. Il knowledge argument di Frank Jackson è stato, fin dalla sua pubblicazione nel 1982, oggetto di intesi dibattiti nell'ambito della filosofia della mente. La tesi ricostruisce l'argomento nei suoi punti di forza e nelle sue criticità, cercando di trovare i motivi che hanno spinto lo stesso autore a rigettarlo.

Thesis for B.A. in Philosophy, under the supervision of prof. Andrea Zhok. The Knowledge argument, by Frank Jackson, has raised many debates in contemporary philosophy of mind, since its publication in 1982. The paper analyses the argument in both its strenghts and weaknesses, aiming to explain the reasons that led the author to reject it.

This public article presents three arguments for the plausibility of panpsychism: the view that sentience is a fundamental and ubiquitous element of actuality. Thereafter is presented a brief exploration of why panpsychism has been spurned.
The article was commissioned by High Existence.

– Introduction
– 1. The Genetic Argument
– 2. The Abstraction Argument
– 3. The Inferential Argument
– Why Panpsychism is Spurned
– End Remarks

Originally published 15 January 2018: http://highexistence.com/panpsychism-3-reasons-why-our-world-brimming-sentience/ [note different subtitle]

Accompanying audio version: https://youtu.be/B7B_RmZQp5Q

©Peter Sjöstedt-H 2018

(1) A materialist holds that every concrete phenomenon is wholly physical or material.
(2) A realistic materialist is a full-fledged realist about consciousness. So
(3) a realistic materialist must hold that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon, and that at least some arrangements of matter are conscious or constitute consciousness.
What follows? I assume in a standard way that
(4) all matter is made of the same stuff (leptons and quarks, or strings, or…)
and I take it to follow that
(5) all matter can be arranged in a consciousness-constituting way.
I then argue that
(6) for certain things A, you cannot get A from non-A
and that
(7) consciousness is one of those things.
Coupled with (1)-(5), (6) and (7) entail that no matter can be wholly non-conscious in its ‘intrinsic’ or ‘ultimate’ nature. If so, any realistic—any truly serious—materialist must be a panpsychist.

key words materialism, physicalism, consciousness, mind-body problem, panpsychism, Eddington, emergence, matter, monism, microexperientiality, panexperientialism

Consciousness is a virtual-reality display, created by an internal executive agent, which human beings experience as the self. This display serves to monitor and manage the state of the organism in relation to the world. Conscious experience serves a different function than unconscious processing. It is therefore not superfluous but has limited causal powers within the organism: the causality of agency, rather than the passive (efficient) causality of physics.

ABSTRACT
The introduction presents merely roughly‭ (‬as they undergo change all the time‭) ‬the contemporary,‭ ‬insular,‭ ‬Anglo-Phone speculations‭ (‬supposedly by means of the discourse of philosophy and the socio-cultural practice of philosophizing‭) ‬about notions of consciousness and mind.

These,‭ ‬almost epistemological solipsistic,‭ ‬self-centered and anthropo-centered,‭  ‬restricted speculations about the notions of mind and consciousness are made by means of cognitively biased metaphysical,‭ ‬ontological,‭ ‬epistemological and methodological assumptions and selective interpretations of the nature and the doing of philosophy.‭ ‬Individuals or groups of them uttering those speculations form part of the professional academe and subscribe to the principles,‭ ‬attitudes,‭ ‬values and norms of a particular school,‭ ‬movement and community of Western academic philosophers.

The next sections situate the individuals who utter these pronouncements and/‭ ‬or argue for them by reasoning,‭ ‬logic and argumentation in the wider context of the multiverse,‭ ‬the universe,‭ ‬planet earth and our species as merely one type of contingent,‭ ‬living organism inhabiting and restricted to a certain eon,‭ ‬era,‭ ‬period,‭ ‬epoch,‭ ‬civilization,‭ ‬historical period and culture‭ (‬or time and place‭) ‬of this planet.‭ ‬In spite of this absolute restriction by place and time individuals try to depict from this restricted point of view an all-inclusive,‭ ‬god-like explanation of the nature,‭ ‬origin,‭ ‬meaning and functioning of every thing.‭

I suggest that because of conceptual misuse mental objects such as the mind and consciousness are imagined and thought to exist.‭ ‬Such misleading notions lead to the creation of unnecessary‭ ‘‬philosophical‭’ ‬problems such as the mind-body problem and notions about things such as‭ ‘‬qualia‭’‬.‭ ‬It is advisable to restrict any‭  ‬experiments to an investigation of particular senses and‭ ‘‬acts‭’ ‬of cognition and identify the areas in the body and brain that play a part in them‭ ‬-‭ ‬and to leave such research to experts of the specialized cognitive and‭  ‬neuroscientific fields and related disciplines,‭ ‬instead of trying to speculate about them or by the use of thought experiments,‭ ‬imaginary cases and simulations,‭ ‬fictional accounts and reasoning or arguments.

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. 

The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound.

Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward.

心智哲学中的还原的物理主义认为，心智实体和属性都原则上可还原为物理、化学或生物-生理实体及属性，尤其是人脑神经元网络的活动及状态。还原包括本体论还原与认识论还原，而且有必要特别强调原则上可还原与实际上可还原之间的区别。支持还原的物理主义的理由包括正反两方面：正面理由是认知科学的正面进展；反面理由则在于，认知科学的进展中迄今还未发现任何原则上不可还原的东西，而一些哲学家所提出的还原的障碍，经仔细分析可以确认，都不是原则性的障碍。综合这些理由，还原的物理主义是比非还原的物理主义相对更可信的观点。

According to the dominant tradition in Christianity and many other religions, human beings are both knowers and actors: beings with conscious beliefs about the world who sometimes act intentionally guided by these beliefs. According to philosopher of mind Robert Cummins the "received view" among philosophers of mind is epiphenomenalism, according to which mental causation does not exist: neural events are the underlying causes of both behavior and belief which explains the correlation (not causation) between belief and behavior. Beliefs do not, in virtue of their semantic content, enter the causal chain leading to action, beliefs are always the endpoint of a causal chain. If that is true the theological anthropology of many religious traditions is false.

Consideration of a weakness in Nagel's argument for panpsychism, as highlighted by Rosenthal, points us in the direction of a modified argument for a nearby position. On panqualityism the basic building blocks of the physical world are qualitative without being yet phenomenally qualitative (i.e. intrinsically conscious). Panqualityism is developed and propounded as a promising form of physicalism. On this basis an objectivising account is given of consciousness and subjectivity.

Aristotle's theory of nature offered a number of advantages from a Christian point of view. It allowed for a profound difference between human beings and other material entities based on a distinction between rationality and sub-rationality, which fit nicely with the Biblical conception of humans as the unique bearers of the divine image in the physical world. At the same time, Aristotelianism conceived of human desires and aspirations as continuous with the striving of all natural entities to their essence-determined ends, providing an objective and scientific basis for objective norms in ethics, aesthetics, and politics. The Scientific Revolution of the last three hundred years, while clearly enabling an amazing degree of progress in our understanding of the physical basis of the world (both at the very small and very large ends of the scale), occasioned the unnecessary loss of many metaphysical insights of Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition, insights which remain essential to the understanding of middle-sized objects-like human beings. The quantum revolution of the last one hundred years has gradually transformed the imaginative landscape of natural science, creating new opportunities for the recovery of those same Aristotelian themes. (191)