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Normism: The Philosophy of Norm Macdonald, a short book I wrote about the late great comedian, is available on Amazon.
Category Archives: Philosophy of Mind
2016: The Science of Consciousness
In Scientific American, John Horgan has a somewhat meandering report comparing the expert opinions at the original 1994 “The Science of Consciousness” conference, held annually at the University of Arizona, vs. the recent 2016 conference. Bottom Line: the “integrated information … Continue reading
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The Empty Brain
Robert Epstein has a nice essay in Aeon critical of the reductive materialism that dominates current consciousness research (“The Empty Brain”). First and foremost, Epstein rightly critiques the dominant contemporary metaphor of the brain as being like a computer: The … Continue reading
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LSD Brain Imaging
There’s a fascinating new study on involving LSD brain imaging, offering potential insights into consciousness: MRI scans showed that LSD caused brain activity to become less coordinated in regions that make up what is called the default mode network. The … Continue reading
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Consciousness Is Not Mysterious?
Michael Graziano, who is very much in Camp Dennett, writes that “Consciousness Is Not Mysterious“. Of the Hard Problem of consciousness, Graziano writes: The brain constructs inaccurate models of the world. To understand consciousness scientifically, once again it’s necessary for … Continue reading
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Gaps in the Grammar of the Universe
Jag Bhalla has an excellent, brief, Tractatus-outlined piece on the limits of scientism, the indeterminateness of language and its metaphysical inscrutability. (“Gaps in the Grammar of the Universe?“) Does our grasp of the grammar of the universe have gaps? Is … Continue reading
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Brain Simulation is ‘A Priori’ Impossible
Peter Hankins nods to Mysterianism in “Trying to simulate the human brain is a waste of energy“: The philosopher John Searle has been dining out for years on a good line about simulation. People think, he says, that if they … Continue reading
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On the Value of Not Knowing Everything
James McWilliams has a good article “On the Value of Not Knowing Everything“, centering on the Mysterian position which emanates from Thomas Nagel’s seminal bat argument, an argument I believe is incontestable. Despite a few misplaced snickers (e.g., describing anti-pomo … Continue reading
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Ex Machina (2015)
Ex Machina (2015), which currently has a 92% on RT, is written and directed by Alex Garland, who is something of a Renaissance Man when it comes to the arts. In 1996, he published his first novel The Beach which … Continue reading
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The State of the ‘Hard Problem’
Oliver Burkeman has an excellent overview of the core debates in contemporary philosophy of mind as it pertains to the ‘hard problem’ (“Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?“). It’s all in here: Nagel, McGinn, Chalmers, … Continue reading
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Waking, Dreaming, Being
From a review of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy by Evan Thompson: Armed with high-resolution digital tools, researchers have mapped critical steps in cognition and vision, language and even memory. The success of these … Continue reading
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