Results for 'Nonphysical'

27 found
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  1. Physical and Nonphysical Aspects of Nature.Moorad Alexanian - 2002 - Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 54 (4):287-288.
    Human consciousness and reasoning summarize all physical data into laws and create the mathematical theories that lead to predictions. However, the human element that creates the theories is totally absent from the laws and theories themselves. Accordingly, human consciousness and rationality are outside the bounds of science since they cannot be detected by purely physical devices and can only be “detected” by the self in humans. One wonders if notions of information, function, and purpose, can provide explanations of such (...) aspects of creation. (shrink)
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  2. Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition.Matthew Owen - 2021 - Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield).
    In Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition, Matthew Owen argues that despite its nonphysical character, it is possible to empirically detect and measure consciousness. -/- Toward the end of the previous century, the neuroscience of consciousness set its roots and sprouted within a materialist milieu that reduced the mind to matter. Several decades later, dualism is being dusted off and reconsidered. Although some may see this revival as a threat to consciousness science aimed at (...)
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  3. Deprioritizing the A Priori Arguments against Physicalism.Richard Brown - 2010 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 17 (3-4):47-69.
    In this paper I argue that a priori arguments fail to present any real problem for physicalism. They beg the question against physicalism in the sense that the argument will only seem compelling if one is already assuming that qualitative properties are nonphysical. To show this I will present the reverse-zombie and reverse-knowledge arguments. The only evidence against physicalism is a priori arguments, but there are also a priori arguments against dualism of exactly the same variety. Each of these (...)
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  4. A Note on the Definition of Physicalism.Ben Blumson & Weng Hong Tang - 2015 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4 (1):10-18.
    Physicalism is incompatible with what is known as the possibility of zombies, that is, the possibility of a world physically like ours, but in which there are no conscious experiences. But it is compatible with what is known as the possibility of ghosts, that is, the possibility of a world which is physically like ours, but in which there are additional nonphysical entities. In this paper we argue that a revision to the traditional definition of physicalism designed to accommodate (...)
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  5. A Moral Argument for Substance Dualism.Gerald K. Harrison - 2016 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association (1):21--35.
    This paper presents a moral argument in support of the view that the mind is a nonphysical object. It is intuitively obvious that we, the bearers of conscious experiences, have an inherent value that is not reducible to the value of our conscious experiences. It remains intuitively obvious that we have inherent value even when we represent ourselves to have no physical bodies whatsoever. Given certain assumptions about morality and moral intuitions, this implies that the bearers of conscious experiences—the (...)
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  6. Inner privacy of conscious experiences and quantum information.Danko D. Georgiev - 2020 - Biosystems 187:104051.
    The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative, phenomenal nature of conscious experiences also cannot be communicated to others in the form of a message composed of classical bits of information. Because in a classical world everything physical is observable and communicable, it is a daunting task to explain how an empirically unobservable, incommunicable consciousness could have any physical (...)
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  7. Revelation and the intuition of dualism.Michelle Liu - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):11491-11515.
    In recent literature on the metaphysics of consciousness, and in particular on the prospects of physicalism, there are two interesting strands of discussion. One strand concerns the so-called ‘thesis of revelation’, the claim that the essences of phenomenal properties are revealed in experience. The other strand concerns the intuition of dualism, the intuition that consciousness is nonphysical. With a particular focus on the former, this paper advances two main arguments. First, it argues that the thesis of revelation is intuitive; (...)
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  8. Searle and De Soto: The New Ontology of the Social World.Barry Smith - 2008 - In Barry Smith, David Mark & Isaac Ehrlich (eds.), The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality. Open Court. pp. 35-51.
    Consider a game of blind chess between two chess masters that is recorded in some standard chess notation. The recording is a representation of the game. But what is the game itself? This question is, we believe, central to the entire domain of social ontology. We argue that the recorded game is a special sort of quasi-abstract pattern, something that is: (i) like abstract entities such as numbers or forms, in that it is both nonphysical and nonpsychological; but at (...)
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  9. A New Theory of Free Will.Marcus Arvan - 2013 - Philosophical Forum 44 (1):1-48.
    This paper shows that several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" that (...)
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  10. The multiple-computations theorem and the physics of singling out a computation.Orly Shenker & Meir Hemmo - 2022 - The Monist 105 (1):175-193.
    The problem of multiple-computations discovered by Hilary Putnam presents a deep difficulty for functionalism (of all sorts, computational and causal). We describe in out- line why Putnam’s result, and likewise the more restricted result we call the Multiple- Computations Theorem, are in fact theorems of statistical mechanics. We show why the mere interaction of a computing system with its environment cannot single out a computation as the preferred one amongst the many computations implemented by the system. We explain why nonreductive (...)
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  11. How To Make Mind-Brain Relations Clear.Mostyn W. Jones - 2010 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 17 (5-6):135-160.
    The mind-body problem arises because all theories about mind-brain connections are too deeply obscure to gain general acceptance. This essay suggests a clear, simple, mind-brain solution that avoids all these perennial obscurities. (1) It does so, first of all, by reworking Strawson and Stoljar’s views. They argue that while minds differ from observable brains, minds can still be what brains are physically like behind the appearances created by our outer senses. This could avoid many obscurities. But to clearly do so, (...)
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  12. Self-consciousness.George Bealer - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (1):69-117.
    Self-consciousness constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to functionalism. Either the standard functional definitions of mental relations wrongly require the contents of self-consciousness to be propositions involving “realizations” rather than mental properties and relations themselves. Or else these definitions are circular. The only way to save functional definitions is to expunge the standard functionalist requirement that mental properties be second-order and to accept that they are first-order. But even the resulting “ideological” functionalism, which aims only at conceptual clarification, fails unless it incorporates (...)
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  13. Mind and Brain: Toward an Understanding of Dualism.Kristopher Phillips, Alan Beretta & Harry A. Whitaker - 2014 - In C. U. M. Smith & Harry Whitaker (eds.), Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 355-369.
    A post-Newtonian understanding of matter includes immaterial forces; thus, the concept of ‘physical’ has lost what usefulness it previously had and Cartesian dualism has, consequently, ceased to support a divide between the mental and the physical. A contemporary scientific understanding of mind that goes back at least as far as Priestley in the 18th century, not only includes immaterial components but identifies brain parts in which these components correlate with neural activity. What are we left with? The challenge is no (...)
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  14. Materialism and the logical structure of intentionality.George Bealer - 1996 - In Howard Robinson (ed.), Objections to Physicalism. New York: Clarendon Press.
    After a brief history of Brentano's thesis of intentionality, it is argued that intentionality presents a serious problem for materialism. First, it is shown that, if no general materialist analysis (or reduction) of intentionality is possible, then intentional phenomena would have in common at least one nonphysical property, namely, their intentionality. A general analysis of intentionality is then suggested. Finally, it is argued that any satisfactory general analysis of intentionality must share with this analysis a feature which entails the (...)
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  15. Physical object.Ned Markosian - manuscript
    Physical objects are the most familiar of all objects, and yet the concept of a physical object remains elusive. Any six-year-old can give you a dozen examples of physical objects, and most people with at least one undergraduate course in philosophy can also give examples of non-physical objects. But if asked to produce a definition of ‘physical object’ that adequately captures the distinction between the physical and the nonphysical, the average person can offer little more than hand-waving.
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  16. A dilemma for the soul theory of personal identity.Jacob Berger - 2018 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 83 (1):41-55.
    The problem of diachronic personal identity is this: what explains why a person P1 at time T1 is numerically identical with a person P2 at a later time T2, even if they are not at those times qualitatively identical? One traditional explanation is the soul theory, according to which persons persist in virtue of their nonphysical souls. I argue here that this view faces a new and arguably insuperable dilemma: either souls, like physical bodies, change over time, in which (...)
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  17. The Absentminded Professor.Justin Tiehen - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    In this paper, I argue that absences pose a challenge to our understanding of physicalism that has not been properly appreciated. I do this by setting out a thought experiment involving a being in whom absence properties occupy the causal roles that functionalists take to define mental properties, in which case these absence properties realize the being’s mental properties. Such a being should be compatible with the truth of physicalism, I argue, even though its mental properties are neither themselves physical (...)
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  18. Platonic Computer— the Universal Machine That Bridges the “Inverse Explanatory Gap” in the Philosophy of Mind.Simon X. Duan - 2022 - Filozofia i Nauka 10:285-302.
    The scope of Platonism is extended by introducing the concept of a “Platonic computer” which is incorporated in metacomputics. The theoretical framework of metacomputics postulates that a Platonic computer exists in the realm of Forms and is made by, of, with, and from metaconsciousness. Metaconsciousness is defined as the “power to conceive, to perceive, and to be self-aware” and is the formless, con-tentless infinite potentiality. Metacomputics models how metaconsciousness generates the perceived actualities including abstract entities and physical and nonphysical (...)
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  19. Synchronicity, Mind, and Matter.Wlodzislaw Duch - 2002 - International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 21:153-168.
    Experiments with remote perception and Random Event Generators (REG) performed over the last decades show small but significant anomalous effects. Since these effects seem to be independent of spatial and temporal distance, they appear to be in disagreement with the standard scientific worldview. A very simple explanation of quantum mechanics is pre- sented, rejecting all unjustified claims about the world. A view of mind in agreement with cognitive neuroscience is introduced. It is argued that mind and consciousness are emer- gent (...)
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  20. Is Time a Physical Unit?Yang I. Pachankis - 2022 - Science Set Journal of Physics 1 (1):1-4.
    The article approaches the epistemological question on the concept of time from an anthropological psychology perspective. The differentiation between imminent perceptions and existence beyond imminent perception has been the earliest conceptualization of time found so far in the traces of human civilizations. The research differentiated psychological time from modern physics and astronomy as the basic hypothesis in the inquiries on the concept of time in physics and modern astronomy – is the physical unit of time an ontological existence of things (...)
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  21. Reassessing the Nature of IS.David Kreps - 2016 - AIS Electronic Library.
    This paper draws upon the work of three different philosophers, from America (Thomas Nagel), France (Henri Bergson) and Britain (Alfred North Whitehead), to argue for (i) the reality of subjectivity, (ii) the nonphysical nature of subjective consciousness that is dependent upon but not determined by the physical nature of the body, and (iii) the potential unity of a new concept of nature-on-the-move, as distinct from the bifurcation of nature that views only the objective as real. It then presents arguments (...)
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  22. Causation in Physics & in Phyiscalism.Justin Tiehen - forthcoming - Acta Analytica.
    It is widely thought that there is an important argument to be made that starts with premises taken from the science of physics and ends with the conclusion of physicalism. The standard view is that this argument takes the form of a causal argument for physicalism. Roughly: physics tells us that the physical realm is causally complete, and so minds (among other entities) must be physical if they are to interact with the world as we think they do. In what (...)
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  23. Nature, Science, Bayes 'Theorem, and the Whole of Reality‖.Moorad Alexanian - manuscript
    A fundamental problem in science is how to make logical inferences from scientific data. Mere data does not suffice since additional information is necessary to select a domain of models or hypotheses and thus determine the likelihood of each model or hypothesis. Thomas Bayes’ Theorem relates the data and prior information to posterior probabilities associated with differing models or hypotheses and thus is useful in identifying the roles played by the known data and the assumed prior information when making inferences. (...)
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  24. Humans and Consciousness.Moorad Alexanian - 2002 - Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 54 (1).
    The essence of consciousness, the ability to know self, is not something that can be detected with the aid of physical devices. Therefore, the study of consciousness cannot be limited to the methods of sciences. A human being is the “detector” of his or her own self and so a human being is in a sort of space with both physical and nonphysical dimensions. The latter is what C. S. Lewis calls “Supernature.” Conceptual thought, free will, moral autonomy, the (...)
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  25. Phenomenal Consciousness from the Prospect of Representational Theory of Mind.Seyed Mohammad Hosseini & Kambiz Badee - 2013 - Falsafe 41 (1):85-104.
    One of the most important questions in epistemology is the nonphysical realities, like phenomenal consciousness. The main claim of physicalism is real explanations of events and properties are only physical explanations and representationalists are agree too. Thus these realities can explained by the rule of biases of physical and objective events.On the other hand , phenomenalists maintain that conscious experiences and aspect of subjectivity of phenomenal consciousness are not. In this article I attempt formulated the problem of phenomenal consciousness (...)
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  26. Cosmos is a (fatalistic) state machine: Objective theory (cosmos, objective reality, scientific image) vs. Subjective theory (consciousness, subjective reality, manifest image).Xiaoyang Yu - manuscript
    As soon as you believe an imagination to be nonfictional, this imagination becomes your ontological theory of the reality. Your ontological theory (of the reality) can describe a system as the reality. However, actually this system is only a theory/conceptual-space/imagination/visual-imagery of yours, not the actual reality (i.e., the thing-in-itself). An ontological theory (of the reality) actually only describes your (subjective/mental) imagination/visual-imagery/conceptual-space. An ontological theory of the reality, is being described as a situation model (SM). There is no way to prove/disprove (...)
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  27. Set Theoretic Analysis of the Whole of Reality.Moorad Alexanian - 2006 - Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 58 (3):254-255.
    A theistic science would have to represent the integration of all kinds of knowledge intent on explaining the whole of reality. These would include, at least, history, metaphysics, theology, formal logic, mathematics, and experimental sciences. However, what is the whole of reality that one wants to explain? :.
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