Recent content by Mat

Don't give up trying to bridge the gulf. One point I keep trying to make: many people seem to think that if they find a point of view from which a problem becomes invisible, they have solved the problem. If you look at brains who claim to have conscious experience, you can't see the mind-body...

1) bi-directional: brain processes have causal effects on conscious experience. Conscious experience have effects on brain processes. 2) uni-directional: the broadcasted TV programm has effect on the physical processes in my TV. Physical processes in my TV have no effect on what is being...

Then, probably, we can find a better analogy. I recently had the idea to use an orchestral score and the music it conveys as an analogy for brain and consciousness: - To a large extent, the score determines the music. but: - Paper and ink is not the ontological basis for music, in other...

I think you got me wrong. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I didn't want to oppose an immaterial consciousNESS to brain-based contents of consciousness. I don't like using the term consciousNESS. I think that while the brain (as we understand it in contemporary science i.e. a biological information...

sorry, I don't understand the direction of your post. Why do you think it is an error to acknowledge that the physical brain and the conscious mind are not synonymous? Most people would assume that conscious experience ceases under deep anaesthesia before it comes back afterwards. Do you simply...

I will try - if you tell me what part. What, particularly, was unclear for you? my intentions? my arguments? or my conclusions? Or do you think you understand what I wanted to say but you disagree?

On the one hand it is correct to say "my brain determines what I consciously experience" (at least as long as my brain is functioning). On the other hand, I don't want to say "my brain creates conscious experience" because that would imply further assumptions which I think are wrong. Is my...

Hi everybody, this is my first post at Skeptiko, let's start with my thoughts about the TV-analogy you, Alex, have suggested as the one alternative to a naturalistic framework. I do appreciate you question notions like "the mind is what the brain does" because they are really not thought...