philosophy Archives - Knowing Neurons

Feature image depicting a brain in the center of a circle with a visual illusion background. On the left is a hand, palm up, holding a heart. On the right, another hand is tentatively reaching out to grab it. Designed by Alexa Erdogan.

Understanding Visual Illusions Can Make Us More Empathetic

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 McKenna Becker 1 Comment Bias, Blind spot, Cognition, Empathy, Illusion, Neuroplasticity, Optic nerve, Perception, philosophy, Photoreceptor, Politics, R.L. Gregory, Reality, Retina, Stroop Test, Top-Down Processing, V.S. Ramachandran, Visual Illusions

Philosophers and neuroscientists agree that if there is an objective reality, human beings can’t perceive it: philosophers refer to objective reality as a perception independent of any conscious awareness. Neuroscientists… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Measuring Consciousness in Bits

August 1, 2018August 1, 2018 DanielToker 2 Comments Brain, Claude Shannon, Communication, Consciousness, David Chalmers, Entropy, Giulio Tononi, Information, Information theory, Integrated Information Theory, Neuroscience, philosophy, Psychology, Research, Science, Sensory experience

Consciousness is an ambiguous concept. It can mean a lot of different things, depending on the context. For example, I can say that I am conscious of something, as in,… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Consciousness: The Final Frontier

February 21, 2018February 21, 2018 Joel Frohlich 2 Comments Anesthesia, Brain, Cerebellum, Cerebral Cortex, complexity, Conscious, Consciousness, Cortex, Death, Evolution, Giulio Tononi, Human, Information, Integrated Information Theory, Lesions, Life, Neurons, Neurophilosophy, philosophy, Qualia, Seizure, Sleep, Solipsism, Systems, Thomas Nagel, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulaion, Zombies

When I walk through my kitchen, I smell fresh food and feel warmth radiating off of it. These internal, subjective experiences are called qualia. I assume that my refrigerator, my… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Our Illusory Sense of Agency Has a Deeply Important Social Purpose

September 29, 2017October 6, 2017 Chris Frith 0 Comments agency, choice, Consciousness, Epicurus, Free Will, Illusion, Mopan Maya, morality, Perception, philosophy, stoic

’m trying to concentrate on writing this piece, but my two grandchildren in the room next door have stopped making paper aeroplanes and started arguing. ‘You kicked me,’ yells Freya.… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Why panpsychism fails to solve the mystery of consciousness

June 14, 2017June 30, 2017 Keith Frankish 2 Comments Consciousness, David Chalmers, hard problem of consciousness, panpsychism, philosophy, philosophy of mind

Is consciousness everywhere? Is it a basic feature of the Universe, at the very heart of the tiniest subatomic particles? Such an idea – panpsychism as it is known –… Read more

Big Ideas Consciousness Philosophy

Is there Consciousness in Everything?

June 7, 2017June 30, 2017 Philip Geoff 3 Comments Aeon, Consciousness, Intrinsic, Nature, panpsychism, philosophy

Common sense tells us that only living things have an inner life. Rabbits and tigers and mice have feelings, sensations and experiences; tables and rocks and molecules do not. Panpsychists… Read more