Book Review: Neuroscience Fiction
Over 50 years ago, large masses of movie enthusiasts flocked to the premiere of a much awaited sci-fi masterpiece called ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. The plot was rather simple. A…
Read more
philosophy
Understanding Visual Illusions Can Make Us More Empathetic
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
Measuring Consciousness in Bits
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
Consciousness: The Final Frontier
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
Our Illusory Sense of Agency Has a Deeply Important Social Purpose
’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
Why panpsychism fails to solve the mystery of consciousness
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
Is there Consciousness in Everything?
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