After a lecture in Göteborg by the neuroscientist Benjamin Libet in 1993, the Göteborg-Post carried the headline, ‘Now it has been proven: we are all somewhat behind’. The paper was referring to Libet’s celebrated discovery that the neural precursors of some voluntary actions occur before the conscious awareness of the decision to act. In a series of experiments in the 1980s, Libet showed that in an experimental situation in which subjects were asked to perform a simple voluntary action – raising (...) a finger – these acts were preceded by a rise in electrical activity in the area of the brain responsible for the causation of action, called the ‘readiness potential’ (RP). But the striking discovery is that while the RP is activated 550 msec before the action, the subject’s awareness of their decision to act occurs only 150-200 msec before the action. The conclusion is drawn that the causes of our actions in our brains occur fractionally earlier than our conscious awareness of deciding to do them. Hence the frequent description of the result of Libet’s experiments, that we are ‘living in the past’. (shrink)

In this paper a new model of mind is proposed, to do so, at first it was assumed that our physical world a new structure and the mind defined in this context. In this model, the planets are massive curvature of time-space continuum that has made a trapping physical reality that we are located within. Then the mind is defined as an hourglass structure with half bulb within the physical reality and half out of it. This (...) model with attention to figures perhaps might be able to explain some mental states and disorders. (shrink)

Contemporary critical instincts, in early modern studies as elsewhere in literary theory, often dismiss invocations of mind and cognition as inevitably ahistorical, as performing a retrograde version of anachronism. Arguing that our experience of time is inherently anachronistic and polytemporal, we draw on the frameworks of distributed cognition and extended mind to theorize cognition as itself distributed, cultural, and temporal. Intelligent, embodied action is a hybrid process, involving the coordination of disparate neural, affective, cognitive, interpersonal, ecological, technological, (...) and cultural resources. Because the diverse elements of such coupled systems each have their own histories and dynamics, many distinctive or competing times are built in to the very mechanisms of remembering and reasoning. We make this argument by means of two distinct case histories: a reading of the site-specific audio walk of Canadian artist Janet Cardiff; and an extended discussion of a famously anachronistic moment in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. These readings reveal the inherent polytemporalities of human mental and social life. (shrink)

In this chapter aimed at undergraduate philosophy students, I provide a brief and simple introduction to Kant's transcendental idealism and explain the argument of his First Antinomy.

In this essay I explore some of the basic elements of consciousness from a substance dualist point of view, incorporating some elements of Kant's Transcendental Analytic into an overall account of the constitution of consciousness.

Predictive processing is an increasingly popular explanatory framework developed within cognitive neuroscience. It conceives of the brain as a prediction machine that tries to minimise prediction error. Predictive processing has also been employed to explain aspects of conscious experience. In this paper, I critically evaluate current predictive processing approaches to the phenomenology of time-consciousness from a Husserlian perspective. To do so, I introduce the notion of orthodox predictive processing to refer to interpretations of the predictive processing framework that subscribe (...) to representational views of cognition. As it turns out, current predictive processing accounts of time-consciousness are orthodox given their commitment to representational views of both brain functioning and perception, and, on the other hand, their reliance on the primacy of imagination over perception. However, I argue that such accounts are in fact closer to a Kantian-Brentanian approach to the phenomenology of time-consciousness than to the Husserlian account that they attempt to account for. (shrink)

The fundamental building block of the loop quantum gravity (LQG) is the spin network which is used to quantize the physical space-time in the LQG. Recently, the novel quantum spin is proposed using the basic concepts of the spin network. This perspective redefines the notion of the quantum spin and also introduces the novel definition of the reduced Planck constant. The implication of this perspective is not only limited to the quantum gravity; but also found in the quantum mechanics. (...) Using this perspective, we also propose the quantization of the mind-stuff. Similarity between the physical space-time and the space-time of the mind-stuff provides novel notions to study the space-time scientifically as well philosophically. The comparison between the physical- space-time and the space-time of the mind-stuff is also studied. (shrink)

Much recent work on empathy in philosophy of mind and cognitive science has been guided by the assumption that minds are composed of intracranial phenomena, perceptually inaccessible and thus unobservable to everyone but their owners. I challenge this claim. I defend the view that at least some mental states and processes—or at least some parts of some mental states and processes—are at times visible, capable of being directly perceived by others. I further argue that, despite its initial implausibility, this (...) view receives robust support from several strands of empirical research. (shrink)

This book is the first volume featuring the work of American women philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. It provides selected papers authored by Mary Whiton Calkins, Grace Andrus de Laguna, Grace Neal Dolson, Marjorie Glicksman Grene, Marjorie Silliman Harris, Thelma Zemo Lavine, Marie Collins Swabey, Ellen Bliss Talbot, Dorothy Walsh and Margaret Floy Washburn. The book also provides the historical and philosophical background to their work. The papers focus on the nature of philosophy, knowledge, the philosophy (...) of science, the mind-matter nexus, the nature of time, and the question of freedom and the individual. The material is suitable for scholars, researchers and advanced philosophy students interested in (history of) philosophy; theories of knowledge; philosophy of science; mind, and reality. (shrink)

"The relationship between mind and matter has eluded and puzzled philosophers and scientists since the earliest times. In this book, a distinguished scientist reminds his readers of some of the paradoxes of this relationship, and offers his own suggestions towards a solution of the problem"--.

In recent years, the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has profoundly reshaped the way we access and utilize humanity's vast reservoir of knowledge. Equipped with this powerful tool, I have undertaken a thorough exploration of the Human Mind, motivated by a growing concern: the evident decline in students' enthusiasm for learning. More specifically, as a professor and researcher, my need for understanding has driven me to explore in depth what defines us as Human beings and what sets us apart (...) from other species. This investigative journey prompted me to reevaluate the evolutionary process, revisit Darwin's theories, and contemplate fundamental questions regarding the nature of time and reality. These reflections ultimately culminated in the formulation of a concept we call the ``Total Universe", a realm in which all possible events and interactions coexist. Building on this concept, we formulated a Theory of Consciousness rooted in the exploration of this Universe through our minds. This culminated in the emergence of the ``World of the Mind", which represents Human reality within the Total Universe, the fusion of all existing Human realities. Importantly, this theory not only integrates various theories of consciousness but also provides a clear framework for understanding what it might mean for Artificial Intelligence to attain consciousness. Hence, I invite you to embark on this journey of reflection, guided by this collection of written codes that encapsulate the discoveries made within the Total Universe through my mind, my reality. My perspective may resonate with yours, or it may not, and both are entirely valid. After all, each individual inhabits their own unique reality. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been fascinated by the stream of consciousness––thoughts, images, and bits of inner speech that dance across the inner stage. Yet for centuries, such “mind-wandering” was deemed private and thus resistant to empirical investigation. Recent developments in psychology and neuroscience have reinvigorated scientific interest in the stream of thought, leading some researchers to dub this “the era of the wandering mind”. Despite this flurry of progress, scientists have stressed that mind-wandering research requires firmer philosophical foundations. (...) The time is therefore ripe for the philosophy of mind-wandering. Our review begins with a foundational question: what is mind-wandering? We then investigate the significance of mind-wandering for general philosophical topics, namely mental action, introspection, and the norms of thinking and attention. (shrink)

The content of this paper is primarily the product of an attempt to understand consciousness by working through the Gestell - conventionalised epistemology, at least some of several foundational concepts. This paper indirectly addresses the ancient question: “How is objective reference – or intentionality, possible? How is it possible for one thing to direct its thoughts upon another thing?” As such, I have adopted a holistic methodology; one in which I develop a framework based on a form of process philosophy (...) and descriptive emergentism. Many of the problems associated within the philosophy of mind arise because of a failure to understand the interrelations among the concepts we employ when we talk about consciousness and perception. These concepts are generally associated with certain structural features of reality. Hence, the paper advances through a series of attempts at defining the concept of time, moving through to some of the central figures, their thoughts and arguments and problems associated within the philosophy of time. Given the intertwined nature of the associated concepts, I have expanded on these to a level of conceptual integration. (shrink)

We present a hypothetical process of mind coalescence, where arti cial connections are created between two or more brains. This might simply allow for an improved form of communication. At the other extreme, it might merge the minds into one in a process that can be thought of as a reverse split-brain operation. We propose that one way mind coalescence might happen is via an exocortex, a prosthetic extension of the biological brain which integrates with the brain as (...) seamlessly as parts of the biological brain integrate with each other. An exocortex may also prove to be the easiest route for mind uploading, as a person's personality gradually moves away from the aging biological brain and onto the exocortex. Memories might also be copied and shared even without minds being permanently merged. Over time, the borders of personal identity may become loose or even unnecessary. (shrink)

In his recent book ‘Experiencing time’, Simon Prosser discusses a wide variety of topics relating to temporal experience, in a way that is accessible both to those steeped in the philosophy of mind, and to those more familiar with the philosophy of time. He forcefully argues for the conclusion that the B-theorist of time can account for the temporal appearances. In this article, I offer a chapter by chapter response.

Mind-body parallelism is the view that mind and body stand in the same “order and connection,” as Spinoza put it, or that corresponding mental and physical states have corresponding causal explanations in terms of other mental and physical states. This dissertation investigates the nature and role of mind-body parallelism, as well as other forms of parallelism, in Spinoza’s philosophy of mind. In doing so, it also considers how Spinoza’s views relate to current discussions. In present-day philosophy (...) of mind, mind-body parallelism is almost never defended. It is seen as a historical dead-end with insurmountable problems. By contrast, I argue that parallelism powerfully responds to the post-Cartesian mind-body problem (which remains with us today) and that it points a way forward in current debates. The dissertation contains five independent chapters. After an introduction that situates parallelism in relation to both Spinoza’s time and to present discussions, Chapter 1 presents an argument for parallelism aimed at a present-day audience. Chapter 2 discusses Spinoza’s own arguments for parallelism. Both chapters help to clarify what parallelism is, in part by distinguishing between several versions of the view. Chapter 3 discusses what is often considered parallelism’s most problematic feature, its rejection of mind-body interaction. I argue that by distinguishing between the post-Cartesian context in which Spinoza wrote and present-day discussions, we can see that parallelism is compatible with mental causation. Chapters 4 and 5, finally, discuss specific ways in which parallelism is at work in Spinoza’s view of the mind. In Chapter 4, I argue that parallelism is at work in Spinoza’s interesting and distinctive positions on the nature of agency and motivation. In Chapter 5, I show the role of parallelism in his representationalist theory of consciousness. A guiding thread throughout the dissertation is that parallelism presents a distinctive and interesting way to combine realism, non-reductionism and naturalism in relation to those features of human self-understanding that seem difficult to fit into a naturalistic worldview. (shrink)

This article examines the Buddhist idea of anātman, ‘no- self ’ and pudgala, ‘the person’ in relation to the notion of ‘self ’ emerging from contemporary cognitive science. The Buddhist no-self doctrine is enriched by the cognitive scientist’s understanding of the multiple facets of selfhood, or structures of experience, and the causative action of a functional self in the world. A proper understanding of the Buddhist concepts of anātman and pudgala proves critical to mindfulness-based therapeutic interventions: this is as the (...) ‘person’, as constituted by various structures of selfhood, including—the ecological, interpersonal, extended, private, narrative, relational and conceptual selves—which may be disrupted by traumatic events which disorder one’s experience of time, defence, relationality, memory, resource and agency. In the absence of this understanding, the no-self doctrine might encourage a sort of bypass, in which traumatic facets of selfhood are overlooked in the quest for spiritual liberation. With a proper understanding of the function served by the Buddhist concepts of no-self and ‘person’, psychotherapeutic work may be situated as a necessary ‘preliminary practice’ for meditative exploration of deeper transpersonal domains and soteriological goals. (shrink)

Panpsychism is an eminently sensible view of the world and its relation to mind. If God is a metaphysician, and regardless of the actual truth or falsity of panpsychism, it is certain that he regards the theory as an honest and elegant competitor on the field of ontologies. And if God didn’t create a panpsychist world, then there’s a fair chance that he wishes he had done so, or will do next time around. The difficulties panpsychism faces, then, (...) are not metaphysical ones. They are, instead, difficulties of understanding, and of acceptance by philosophers. The main difficulty of this sort the theory faces is that its ontology – with consciousness in some sense at the heart of all that exists1 – is deemed too bizarre, frankly, too humano-centric to be taken seriously. Why should anyone think that consciousness, widely held to be the preserve only of ourselves, plus the most recently evolved organisms, infuses the basement level of all existence? Such a thought seems to many – especially, to scientifically scrupled philosophers of mind – a narcissistic (or at best hopelessly anti-realist) folly, which doesn’t even deserve its day in court. Panpsychism.. (shrink)

Dominant views of personal identity in philosophy take some kind of psychological continuity or connectedness over time to be criterial for the identity of a person over time. Such views assign psychological states, particularly those necessary for narrative memory of some kind, special importance in thinking about the nature of persons. The extended mind thesis, which has generated much recent discussion in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, holds that a person’s psychological states can physically (...) extend beyond that person’s body. Since “person” is a term of both metaphysical and moral significance, and discussions of both extended minds and personal identity have often focused on memory, this article explores the relevance of extended cognition for the identity of persons with special attention to neuroethics and memory. (shrink)

Understanding of time, construed as movement, change and becoming, is explained taking examples from natural sciences. Durational and metrical aspects of time are elaborated. General assumptions about passage of time are listed. Indian, Chinese and later insights of path of passage of time are figured. Physical and psychological times are differentiated and explained using Energy-Presence (Being) and Energy-Transformation (Becoming) concepts. Concepts of Time at rest and Time in motion are proposed. -/- . The meanings (...) of time-space, time-flow, different phases of time-conscious and time-transcendent mind and thought processes are interpreted from basic physics principles and Upanishadic awareness -/- An attempt is made to present a comprehensive insight of nature of time, thought process and conscious states (phases) of mind. (shrink)

Much debate in contemporary metaphysics of time has centred on whether or not tense is essential to the understanding of a temporal reality. The rival positions in this debate are associated with two very different pictures of the relationship between time and existence. Those who argue for the dispensability of tense see the phenomenon of tense as an epistemological accretion which infects our perception of the world but is in no way essential to a complete description of reality. (...) With respect to existence, things past and future are supposed to be on an equal footing with things present. Thus the Quinean ‘time slice’ ontology, which sees the world as a four-dimensional entity in space-time, repudiates any ontological significance to the differences between past, present and future. For the Quinean, what differences we see between past, present and future existents pertain to our limited mode of access to reality. In a perception which grasped the world as it really is tense differences would have no place. In this respect the Quinean position resembles Spinoza's claim in the Ethics that in so far as the mind conceives a thing under the dictates of reason it is affected equally, whether the idea be of a thing future, past or present. (shrink)

Introduction National statistics suggest that up to 40% of new teachers will leave their school or the teaching profession within their first five years of teaching. Much of this attrition is associated with work-related burnout, some of which may be preventable with targeted worksite health interventions. Previous research suggests that mindfulness skills may be protective from burnout, ultimately reducing the likelihood of attrition from the profession. Methods This study compared the self-reported levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress with participants’ (...) levels of interpersonal and intrapersonal mindfulness. Participants completed the Professional Quality of Life Inventory and the Mindfulness in Teaching Inventory. Odds Ratios and Relative Risks were calculated using Epi Info. Pearson correlations, linear regression, and ANOVA analyses were completed using SPSS. Chronbach’s alpha values were also calculated to evaluate score reliability of the five constructs. Results Relative Risks and Odds Ratios of having secondary traumatic stress scores of “average/high” were significantly lower for those with high intrapersonal mindfulness scores. Those who reported high intrapersonal mindfulness scores were up to 11 times more likely to report “low” burnout than those who reported low intrapersonal mindfulness scores. Burnout negatively correlated with both intrapersonal mindfulness suggesting that as intrapersonal mindfulness level decreases, burnout increases. ANOVA testing identified significant differences in burnout based on intrapersonal mindfulness level. Conclusion Those who reported high levels of intrapersonal mindfulness had significantly reduced risk of burnout. These results will inform further research in the region regarding mindfulness practice and the experience of burnout among teachers in the region. Thus, mindfulness may be protective from occupation-related burnout for this population. Interventions informed by additional research could reduce the burden of occupation-related burnout and may ultimately contribute toward reduced attrition in the teaching profession. (shrink)

Time and space are conflated in time-warps when asleep we dream. Our wakeful cognitive ability to keep them separate indicates different ways of envisaging self-hood. Awareness that dream-time and life-time are separate is itself a propensity of human minds that has evolved by natural selection with adaptive developments in cerebral neuronal circuitry that underpin human behavioural complexity. The contrast is highlighted between how memory of our spatio-temporal experiences appears to be treated by our brain one way (...) when we are wide-awake and thus well aware of our unfolding personal life-history, and in a different way when, fast asleep, our dreaming dissolves any such awareness and our oneiric self-hood seems different from our real-life self-hood. The difference is considered from two angles. Regarding simultaneous memory-storage for an experience recalled from alternative perspectives, a theoretical possibility is proposed of a pro-system comparable to Cantor Ternary Set topology. Regarding the brain, the difference is considered in relation to the temporo-spatial theory of consciousness and the compatible concept of active inference forestalling surprisal by minimising variational free energy according to the free energy principle. (shrink)

Experiences justify beliefs about our environment. Sometimes the justification is immediate: seeing a red light immediately justifies believing there is a red light. Other times the justification is mediate: seeing a red light justifies believing one should brake in a way that is mediated by background knowledge of traffic signals. How does this distinction map onto the distinction between what is and what isn't part of the content of experience? Epistemic egalitarians think that experiences immediately justify whatever is part of (...) their content. Epistemic elitists deny this and think that there is some further constraint the contents of experience must satisfy to be immediately justified. Here I defend epistemic elitism, propose a phenomenological account of what the further constraint is, and explore the resulting view's consequences for our knowledge of other minds, and in particular for perceptual theories of this knowledge. (shrink)

Some contemporary states are morally culpable for historically distant wrongs. But which states for which wrongs? The answer is not obvious, due to secessions, unions, and the formation of new states in the time since the wrongs occurred. This paper develops a framework for answering the question. The argument begins by outlining a picture of states’ agency on which states’ culpability is distinct from the culpability of states’ members. It then outlines, and rejects, a plausible-seeming answer to our question: (...) that culpability transmits from a past state’s action to a present state just if the two states share a numerical identity, for example as determined by international law. I advocate a different answer: culpability transmits from a past action to a present state to the extent that the present state ‘descends from’ the aspects of the past state that underpinned the past action. One potential upshot is that some present-day settler-colonies (such as Australia) are culpable for the centuries-ago invasion of their lands by European powers—even though these states did not perform these invasions and indeed did not exist at the time. (shrink)

There have been many attempts to retire dualism from active philosophic life, replacing it with something less removed from science, but we are no closer to that goal now than fifty years ago. I propose breaking the stalemate by considering marginal perspectives that may help identify unrecognized assumptions that limit the mainstream debate. Comparison with Whitehead highlights ways that opponents of dualism continue to uphold the Cartesian “real distinction” between mind and body. Whitehead, by contrast, insists on a conceptual (...) distinction: there can no more be body without mind than mind without body (at least at the level of ultimate constituents). Key to this integration is Whitehead’s understanding that mind, at its most rudimentary, is simply the intrinsic temporality of a physical event. Thus, the resulting form of “panpsychism” is more naturalistic than commonly supposed, and it solves both the composition problem (traditionally fatal to panpsychism) and the “hard problem.”. (shrink)

I believe that time passes. In the last one hundred years or so, many philosophers have rejected this view. Those who have done so have generally been motivated by at least one of three different arguments: (i) McTaggart's argument, (ii) an argument from the theory of relativity, and (iii) an argument concerning the alleged incoherence of talk about the rate of the passage of time. There has been a great deal of literature on McTaggart's argument (although no concensus (...) has been reached).1 There has been a relatively small amount of literature on the argument from the theory of relativity, but this is perhaps not surprising, since most of us philosophers don't understand that theory.2 Meanwhile, there has not been a great deal of literature on the rate of passage argument, and this is surprising, I think, considering that the argument is easy to.. (shrink)

I advocate Time-Slice Rationality, the thesis that the relationship between two time-slices of the same person is not importantly different, for purposes of rational evaluation, from the relationship between time-slices of distinct persons. The locus of rationality, so to speak, is the time-slice rather than the temporally extended agent. This claim is motivated by consideration of puzzle cases for personal identity over time and by a very moderate form of internalism about rationality. Time-Slice Rationality (...) conflicts with two proposed principles of rationality, Conditionalization and Reflection. Conditionalization is a diachronic norm saying how your current degrees of belief should fit with your old ones, while Reflection is a norm enjoining you to defer to the degrees of belief that you expect to have in the future. But they are independently problematic and should be replaced by improved, time-slice-centric principles. Conditionalization should be replaced by a synchronic norm saying what degrees of belief you ought to have given your current evidence and Reflection should be replaced by a norm which instructs you to defer to the degrees of belief of agents you take to be experts. These replacement principles do all the work that the old principles were supposed to do while avoiding their problems. In this way, Time-Slice Rationality puts the theory of rationality on firmer foundations and yields better norms than alternative, non-time-slice-centric approaches. (shrink)

According to the attentional resources account, mind wandering (or “task-unrelated thought”) is thought to compete with a focal task for attentional resources. Here, we tested two key predictions of this account: First, that mind wandering should not interfere with performance on a task that does not require attentional resources; second, that as task requirements become automatized, performance should improve and depth of mind wandering should increase. Here, we used a serial reaction time task with implicit- and (...) explicit-learning groups to test these predictions. Providing novel evidence for the attentional resource account’s first prediction, results indicated that depth of mind wandering was negatively associated with learning in the explicit, but not the implicit, group, indicating that mind wandering is associated with impaired explicit, but not implicit, learning. Corroborating the attention resource account’s second prediction, we also found that, overall, performance improved while at the same time depth of mind wandering increased. From an implicit learning perspective, these results are consistent with the claim that explicit learning is impaired under attentional load, but implicit learning is not. (shrink)

Episodic memory (memories of the personal past) and prospecting the future (anticipating events) are often described as mental time travel (MTT). While most use this description metaphorically, we argue that episodic memory may allow for MTT in at least some robust sense. While episodic memory experiences may not allow us to literally travel through time, they do afford genuine awareness of past-perceived events. This is in contrast to an alternative view on which episodic memory experiences present past-perceived events (...) as mere intentional contents. Hence, episodic memory is a way of coming into experiential contact with, or being again aware of, what happened in the past. We argue that episodic memory experiences depend on a causal-informational link with the past events being remembered, and that, assuming direct realism about episodic memory experiences, this link suffices for genuine awareness. Since there is no such link in future prospection, a similar argument cannot be used to show that it also affords genuine awareness of future events. Constructivist views of memory might challenge the idea of memory as genuine awareness of remembered events. We explain how our view is consistent with both constructivist and anti-causalist conceptions of memory. There is still room for an interpretation of episodic memory as enabling genuine awareness of past events, even if it involves reconstruction. (shrink)

The mind of man is central to the structure and functioning of the physical world. Modern physical theory indicates that the mind stands in a relationship of equals to the physical world. Both are fundamental, neither can be reduced to the other, and both require each other for their full understanding. This thesis is at odds with the view of the universe found in Newtonian mechanics as well as the generally held view among contemporary physicists of modern physical (...) theory. Since the Renaissance, man has come to understand a great deal about the physical world, and he has gained significant control over it. This increased power over the physical world has occurred hand in hand with the assumption that the structure and functioning of the physical world is essentially independent from his cognitive functioning. According to this assumption, if man’s cognitive capacity did not exist, the functioning of the physical world would not be fundamentally altered. This last statement is not in fact correct, and modern physical theory, and even fundamentals underlying Newtonian mechanics, provide evidence to attest to this. Nonetheless, contemporary physicists for the most part do not see that the relationship of human cognition to the physical world is radically altered in their own modern theory, theory that is supported by a great deal of empirical data. Instead, attempting to preserve the thesis that the structure and functioning of the physical world is independent of the mind while on a practical level relying on modern theory that contradicts this thesis, physicists have placed themselves in the position of wondering at times exactly what is the nature of the physical world at the same time they obtain experimental results concerning the physical world that can only be labeled astonishing in their precision and the scope of their implications. Modern physical theory consists of three main components: 1) the special and general theories of relativity; 2) quantum mechanics; and 3) statistical mechanics. There are very successful theories that have been developed on the basis of these three bedrock areas. An example of one is quantum electrodynamics. But these theories owe their conceptual foundation to the three components mentioned. The basic issues at the core of these three components also are expressed in these later theories. In addition, there are new unresolved issues of a fundamental nature concerning the conceptual integrity of these later theories that do not apply to quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and statistical mechanics. Quantum mechanics and relativity theory are areas I have written about for over twelve years. The nature of statistical mechanics has also been of interest to me during this time. But when I took a serious look in 1993 at Tolman’s (1938) The Principles of Statistical Mechanics, it became clear that the mind is linked to the physical world in statistical mechanics, a relationship I had found earlier in both relativity theory and quantum mechanics. It was after reading Tolman’s justification of the method of statistical mechanics in the original that I decided to write this book. When I found that the three components of modern physical theory all pointed to the same relationship between mind and the physical world, it became clear that the fundamental isolation of the mind from the physical world that has characterized our experience since the development of Newtonian mechanics is unfounded. Based on empirically supported principles of modern physical theory, I determined that the appropriate assumption for one’s experience, that the mind is linked to the physical world, could be stated with confidence. The impact of this change in assumption concerning the relationship of man to the cosmos in modern physical theory will find its way into our everyday experience. It will perhaps have no greater effect than in reducing the sense of isolation of man from the world that has characterized modern existence. (shrink)

The mind-body relationship has vexed philosophers of mind for quite a long time. Different theories of mind have offered different points of view about the interaction between the two, but none of them seem free of ambiguities and questions. This paper attempts to use a mathematical model for mind-body relationship. The model may generate some questions to think about this relationship from the viewpoint of operator theory.

This paper deals with the study of the nature of mind, its processes and its relations with the other filed known as logic, especially the contribution of most notable contemporary analytical philosophy Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein showed a critical relation between the mind and logic. He assumed that every mental process is logical. Mental field is field of space and time and logical field is a field of reasoning (inductive and deductive). It is only with the advancement in (...) logic, we are today in the era of scientific progress and technology. Logic played an important role in the cognitive part or we can say in the ‗philosophy of mind‘ that this branch is developed only because of three crucial theories i.e. rationalism, empiricism, and criticism. In this paper, it is argued that innate ideas or truth are equated with deduction and acquired truths are related with induction. This article also enhance the role of language in the makeup of the world of mind, although mind and the thought are the terms that are used by the philosophers synonymously but in this paper they are taken and interpreted differently. It shows the development in the analytical tradition subjected to the areas of mind and logic and their critical relation. (shrink)

In 1949, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manchester organized a symposium “Mind and Machine” with Michael Polanyi, the mathematicians Alan Turing and Max Newman, the neurologists Geoff rey Jeff erson and J. Z. Young, and others as participants. Th is event is known among Turing scholars, because it laid the seed for Turing’s famous paper on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, but it is scarcely documented. Here, the transcript of this event, together with Polanyi’s original statement and (...) his notes taken at a lecture by Jeff erson, are edited and commented for the fi rst time. Th e originals are in the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago. Th e introduction highlights elements of the debate that included neurophysiology, mathematics, the mind-body-machine problem, and consciousness and shows that Turing’s approach, as documented here, does not lend itself to reductionism. (shrink)

Spatial models dominated memory research throughout much of the 20th century, but in recent decades, the concept of memory as a form of mental time travel (MTT) to the past has gained prominence. Initially introduced as a metaphor, the MTT perspective shifted the focus from internal memory processes to the subjective conscious experience of remembering. Despite its significant impact on empirical and theoretical memory research, there has been limited discussion regarding the meaning and adequacy of the MTT metaphor in (...) accounting for memory. While previous work has addressed the general limitations of the MTT metaphor in explaining memory (Trakas, 2022), the objective of this article is more focused and modest: to gain a better understanding of what constitutes MTT to the past. To achieve this objective, a detailed analysis of the characteristics of MTT to the past is presented through a comparison with time travel (TT) to the past. Although acknowledging that TT does not refer to an existing physical phenomenon, it is an older concept extensively discussed in the philosophical literature and provides commonly accepted grounds, particularly within orthodox theories of time, that can offer insights into the nature of MTT. Six specific characteristics serve as points of comparison: (1) a destination distinct from the present, (2) the distinction between subjective time and objective time, (3) the subjective experience of the time traveler, (4) their differentiation from the past self, (5) the existence of the past, and (6) its unchangeability. Through this research, a detailed exploration of the phenomenal and metaphysical aspects of MTT to the past is undertaken, shedding light on the distinct features that mental time travel to the past acquires when it occurs within the realm of the mind rather than as a physical phenomenon. By examining these characteristics, a deeper understanding of the nature of mental time travel is achieved, offering insights into how it operates in relation to memory and the past. (shrink)

Spinoza claims that a person’s mind and body are one and the same. But he also claims that minds think and do not move, whereas bodies move and do not think. How can we reconcile these claims? I believe that Spinoza is building on a traditional view about identity over time. According to this view, identity over time is linked to essence, so that a thing that is now resting is identical to a thing that was previously (...) moving, provided that they share the same essence. I believe that Spinoza has a similar view about the identity of minds and bodies. In particular, a thing that is thinking in the attribute of thought is identical to a thing that is moving in the attribute of extension, provided that they share the same essence. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the temporal content of perceptual experience. It argues that we must recognize the existence of temporal perceptions, i.e., perceptions the content of which cannot be spelled out simply by looking at what is the case at an isolated instant. Acts of apprehension can cover a succession of events. However, a subject who has such perceptions can fall short of having a concept of time. Similar arguments have been put forward to show that a subject (...) who has spatial perceptions can fall short of having a concept of space. In both cases, it is the fact that perception is from a point of view which stands in the way of it constituting an exercise of a concept of how things are objectively. However, the paper also shows that the way in which perception is perspectival takes a different form in each of the two cases. (shrink)

Animal mind philosophy and the related philosophy of language are rich and developing fields of philosophy. Enriched with the language of comparative concepts, they can become the threshold of a cumulative, verifiable strictly scientific "philosophy of pure mind", asserting a fundamentally new view of the problem of society, man and his place among other beings. My understanding of the mind through the prism of nonverbal and verbal thinking allowed me to get an idea of three completely different (...) stages in the development of the mind – reason, mind and wisdom. I understand reason as thinking by classification concepts of natural language, mind – as thinking by concrete scientific comparative concepts verified with the help of the senses. Whereas wisdom, understood by me in the light of "pure reason", is connected with the generalization of many particular comparative concepts. At the same time, I proceed from the fact that we are all perceiving beings, and our brain, being formed in the light of the relations of similarity and difference, perceives (comprehends – grasps) the energy present in the environment (energy in general), and converts it into sensory data. Presented by the Aristotle-Rotenfeld philosophical Matrix, in the form of concrete universal concepts of different types, they expand its cognitive capabilities step by step. Thus, with the help of spatial representations and integral visual images – drawings used by me, I show how to make nonverbal rational thinking of humans and animals verbal, expressing it in comparative terms. (shrink)

Xinxue （The philosophy of mind） founded by ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty for over 700 years. Its ideas have deeply influenced East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Korea in the field of social philosophy, and even indirectly promoted Japan's Meiji Restoration movement. At the same time, scholars from all over the world have conducted numerous studies and explorations on it, but overall, there is a lack of systematic exploration and research on it. (...) This article starts with the concept of a system, combines the content of Xinxue and integrates it into a complete, logical, and comprehensive system of Xinxue. (shrink)

I consider whether the self-ascription theory can succeed in providing a tenseless (B-theoretic) account of tensed belief and timely action. I evaluate an argument given by William Lane Craig for the conclusion that the self-ascription account of tensed belief entails a tensed theory (A-theory) of time. I claim that how one formulates the selfascription account of tensed belief depends upon whether one takes the subject of selfascription to be a momentary person-stage or an enduring person. I provide two different (...) formulations of the self-ascription account of tensed belief, one that is compatible with a perdurantist account of persons and the other that is compatible with an endurantist account of persons. I argue that a self-ascription account of tensed beliefs for enduring subjects most plausibly involves the self-ascription of relations rather than properties. I argue that whether one takes the subject of self-ascription to be a momentary personstage or an enduring person, the self-ascription theory provides a plausible B-theoretic account of how tensed belief and timely action are possible. (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul, conceived as an animating power that included vital, sensory, and rational functions. C. Wolff restricted the term " psychology " to sensory, cognitive, and volitional functions and placed the science under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Near the middle of the eighteenth century, Krueger, Godart, and Bonnet proposed approaching the mind with the techniques of the new natural science. At nearly the same time, (...) Scottish thinkers placed psychology within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. By the end of the century there was a flourishing discipline of empirical psychology in Germany, with a professorship, textbooks, and journals. The practitioners of empirical psychology at this time typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. Accordingly, psychology as a natural scientific disciplines was not invented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but *remade* from the extant empirical psychology. (shrink)

Deflationists hold that it does not seem to us, in experience, as though time robustly passes. There is some recent empirical evidence that appears to support this contention. Equally, empirical evidence suggests that we naïvely represent time as dynamical. Thus deflationists are faced with an explanatory burden. If, as they maintain, the world seems to us in experience as though it is non-dynamical, then why do we represent time as dynamical? This paper takes up the challenge of (...) investigating, on the part of the deflationist, one candidate explanation. We hypothesise that people’s belief that the future is what we call deliberatively open partly explains why they represent time as dynamical. In a series of two experiments we test this hypothesis. We find no evidence that beliefs about deliberative openness explain why people represent time as dynamical. Hence there remains an explanatory burden for the deflationist to discharge. (shrink)

I argue that truth is relative (in the sense recently defended by some prominent analytical philosophers) by focusing on some semantic issues raised by Einstein's theory of relativity together with our ordinary attributions of truth.

Jackson (1982) introduced the Knowledge Argument to elucidate the phenomenal, interior aspects of experience. In 1908 McTaggart defined two series that characterize one dimension of time, the A-series and the B-series. The A-series is usually thought to be phenomenal Farr (2019), SEP (2018). Thus there is the possibility of giving a Knowledge Argument for time. One (informal) statement of the classical Knowledge Argument might be “Mary knows all the facts about color qualia but lives in a black-and-white room. (...) Upon being released into a colorful world, it would seem she learns something new.” The analogous Knowledge Argument for Time (KAT) would be “Nathan knows all the facts about time but lives in a B-series room. Upon being released into a world with both an A-series and a B-series it would seem he learns something new.” I give variations of the KAT based on various distinctions. I don’t give any particular proposed solutions to the Knowledge Arguments for Time. Rather, the point is to state the Arguments (or indicate how they may be stated). It may be hoped that these will help clarify some issues in the philosophy of time and lead to a cross-fertilization between the philosophy of time and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Mental causation, idea that it is us – via our minds – who cause bodily actions is as commonsensical as it is indispensable for our understanding of ourselves as rational agents. Somewhat less uncontroversial, but nonetheless widespread (at least among ordinary people) is the idea that the mind is non-physical, following the intuition that what is physical can neither act nor think nor judge morally. Taken together, and cast into a metaphysical thesis, the two intuitions yield interactive dualism: the (...) view that human persons and their minds are non-physical but can nonetheless interact with their bodies, most notably through their brains. This thesis has two main objectives: first, to defend interactive dualism against objections, and second, to show how it can blend in with a physical world in which laws of nature hold. The first part (chapter 1) consists in a brief motivation of interactive dualism as opposed to non-interactive dualism. I argue that non-interactive, epiphenomenalist dualism sacrifices so many crucial aspects of our human existence that interactive dualism is highly to be preferred to it, barring even stronger counterarguments against the latter. It is those putative counterarguments I address in parts II and III. Part II takes on the philosophical objections from the causal closure of the physical and from causal heterogeneity. The former takes the success of physics and physiology as basis for the doctrine of the causal closure of the physical (CCP). I argue against this that there is not only no convincing argument for CCP, but also that any science-based belief in CCP cannot be epistemically justified. As regards the causal heterogeneity objection, it is ‘weighed and found wanting’, because it relies on unwarranted assumptions about causation. In part III, I examine the objection from energy conservation. It roughly says that if interactive dualism were true, then energy would not be conserved, which physics taught us cannot be the case. My reply is that the underlying conception of energy (and momentum) conservation is wrong-headed and not the one that actual physicists use. Instead of being categorical and global, conservation laws are conditional and local, thereby making natural room for mental interaction. Some dualists, however, have sought to make interactive dualism conservation-friendly, notably by invoking quantum physics; I show that these attempts are unnecessary and create more problems than they solve. Finally, in chapter 9, I turn the tables on non-interactionists by investigating current neurophysiological literature on volitional actions, which, though not addressing the question directly, still encourages the interactive dualist picture more than a non-interactionist one. Part IV is about the interplay between interactive dualism and the laws of nature. The ultimate goal is, if possible, to come up with a theory of the laws of nature that explains the lawlike behavior of nature and at the same time makes room for interaction. I begin by pointing out that the laws of nature are or at least should be what physicalists worry about (chapter 10). I then proceed with a historical survey on the development of the notion of laws of nature (chapter 11) that sheds light on its theistic origin. This is followed by an inquiry into the question how a law of nature could possibly be broken (chapter 12) and a survey of the extant metaphysical theories of the laws of nature with special regard to their receptivity to interaction (chapter 13). Finally, in chapter 14 I develop a theory of the laws of nature both faithful to their divine origin and the possibility of mental interaction: dispositionalist divine decretalism, a synthesis of dispositionalism and Jeffrey Koperski’s divine decretalism. (shrink)

Bringing together literary scholars, computer scientists, ethicists, philosophers of mind, and scholars from affiliated disciplines, this collection of essays offers important and timely insights into the pasts, presents, and, above all, possible futures of Artificial Intelligence. This book covers topics such as ethics and morality, identity and selfhood, and broader issues about AI, addressing questions about the individual, social, and existential impacts of such technologies. Through the works of science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Stanislaw Lem, Ann Leckie, (...) Iain M. Banks, and Martha Wells, alongside key visual productions such as Ex Machina, Westworld, and Her, contributions illustrate how science fiction might inform potential futures as well as acting as a springboard to bring disciplinary knowledge to bear on significant developments of Artificial Intelligence. Addressing a broad, interdisciplinary audience, both expert and non-expert readers gain an in-depth understanding of the wide range of pressing issues to which Artificial Intelligence gives rise, and the ways in which science fiction narratives have been used to represent them. Using science fiction in this manner enables readers to see how even fictional worlds and imagined futures have very real impacts on how we understand these technologies. As such, readers are introduced to theoretical positions on Artificial Intelligence through fictional works as well as encouraged to reflect on the diverse aspects of Artificial Intelligence through its many philosophical, social, legal, scientific, and cultural ramifications. (shrink)

: I offer a new approach to the increasingly convoluted debate between the A- and B-theories of time, the ‘tensed’ and ‘tenseless’ theories. It is often assumed that the B-theory faces more difficulties than the A-theory in explaining the apparently tensed features of temporal experience. I argue that the A-theory cannot explain these features at all, because on any physicalist or supervenience theory of the mind, in which the nature of experience is fixed by the physical state of (...) the world, the tensed properties of time posited by the A-theory could play no role in shaping temporal experience. It follows that the A-theory is false; even a priori arguments for it fail, because they still require the tensed vocabulary which is used to describe temporal experience. (shrink)