Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Sciences, Epistemolgy

The " Natural Problem of Consciousness " is the problem of understanding why there are presently conscious beings at all. Given a non-reductive naturalist framework taking consciousness as an ontologically subjective biological phenomenon, how can we rationally explain the fact that the actual world has turned out to be one where there are presently living beings that can feel, rather than having developed as a zombie-world in which there would be no conscious experiences of any kind? This book introduces the Natural Problem by relating it to central problems in the philosophy of mind (metaphysical mind-body problem, Hard Problem of consciousness) and emphasizing the distinctive interest of its diachronic dimension. Ranging from philosophy to biology and neuroscience, it offers a thorough analysis aimed at better understanding what could explain why phenomenal consciousness has been preserved throughout evolution by natural selection. This is an original, engaging, and thought provoking philosophical study of a neglected but fundamental question regarding the nature and origin of consciousness.

Explorations of the traditional branches of philosophy and (the seemingly endless differentiation of the philosophical discourse into) new, highly specialized, always more microscopic, areas of doing professionalized philosophy, in an attempt to reveal traces of and hints to the remaining, if any, valid and meaningful subject-matter of philosophizing. This is executed against the background and the fact that the socio-cultural practice of philosophy have lost most, if not all, its areas of investigation to other disciplines and inter-disciplinary fields such as  the Cognitive Sciences.....

The Pribram-Bohm holoflux theory, a model describing the topology of consciousness in the universe, is presented here to address the issue posed by David Chalmers in his “hard problem of consciousness.” The theory emerges from an integral evaluation of evidence drawn from two sources: (1) the holonomic mind/brain theories of Karl Pribram, (2) the ontological interpretation of quantum theory by David Bohm. From their work emerges the holoflux theory, after a term proposed by Karl Pribram to express the flow characterized by David Bohm as the “holomovement,” a two-way flow of consciousness between the explicate order and the implicate order. This hypothesis supports both local and non-local phenomena in the observable cosmos.
Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance and Ervin László’s holofield theory are examined and shown to be congruent with the holoflux theory. László’s postulated existence of two domains or dimensions of cosmological architecture, an “A-dimension” equivalent to Bohm’s implicate order and an “M-dimension,” equivalent to Bohm’s explicate, space–time material domain. Sheldrake’s morphic resonance biological forms are described as products of a Fourier transform-like process between these same two domains.
Concluding remarks support the congruence of the Pribram–Bohm topological model with other major paradigms of consciousness, including those elaborated by Chalmers, Lilly, Block, and Teilhard de Chardin.

Die Frage nach der Natur des menschlichen Geistes ist das zentrale Thema sowohl der Philosophie des Geistes, als auch der Neurowissenschaften. Die beiden Disziplinen stellen dabei allerdings verschiedene Aspekte in den Mittelpunkt: Während man in der Philosophie des Geistes Menschen als Personen versteht, die mit ihrer sozialen und physischen Umwelt interagieren und die Freiheit haben, gewisse Handlungen auszuführen und andere zu unterlassen, geht man in den Neurowissenschaften von der Tatsache aus, dass Menschen körperliche Wesen und als solche, wie alle materiellen Entitäten, den Gesetzen der Naturwissenschaften unterworfen sind. Mentale Phänomene werden in den Neurowissenschaften als Prozesse des Gehirns (ev. in Verbindung mit anderen Teilen des menschlichen Körpers) verstanden, das, wie alle körperlichen Organe, vollständig durch eine Auflistung der kausalen Prozesse, die sich in ihm abspielen beziehungsweise abspielen können, beschrieben werden kann.

Hands undoubtedly matter. Few, I suspect, would disagree. Yet The Hand, an Organ of the Mind uses this commonplace to dispel what is termed the "intellectualist illusion" (p370), the illusion that the things we do with our hands are always and everywhere guided by an in--the--head centralised planner. Radman's spirited collection of essays makes the point that we are not the sort of "centralised knowers" (p369) that the history of cognitive science might have us believe. Rather the manual is primary: it not only structures our encounters with the world; it is also constitutive of those encounters. We are in fact manual beings (p389).

The aim of the paper is to offer a characterisation of delusional systems of belief. The view defended in the paper is that the explanations that appear in delusional systems of belief do not effect a reduction in the number of things left unexplained. In this respect, it is argued, delusions differ from both common sense and from scientific explanations. The thesis is defended with a range of examples, including some simple examples from the history of science. Particular attention is paid to differences between scientific explanations and those that figure in delusions.
Since delusions leave more things unexplained than common-sense and science, it follows that a person suffering from delusional belief has a reduced level of understanding of the world around them.
It is also argued that that the thesis that delusional beliefs fail to minimise that which requires explanation is able to deal with some usually “difficult cases” for accounts of delusional thinking.

I examine the significance and promise of the " paradigm shift " evinced by the emergence and reception of the " embodied and situated cognition " research program (ESC) in the past few decades. Such a program puts in question age-old assumptions, dichotomies and distinctions in the history of Western philosophy stretching back to Plato and onward to Descartes and beyond, up to the so-called 'cognitivist framework' (CF), which has come to dominate in both (Anglo-American) philosophy and the cognitive sciences. In order to better understand the main point(s) of contention between theses programs, I begin by tracing historically the emergence of CF to the Cartesian legacy –properly understood and interpreted, and proceed to characterize the fundamental contrast between CF and ESC, as I see it, in light of some of the empirical work done in recent years. I then turn to a philosophical discussion of the notions of 'embodiment' and situatedness' in order to delineate the proper and necessary background context for understanding ultimately what is at stake, in an effort to see how they are best 'cashed in' both theoretically and empirically. Finally, I re-focus on the situatedness of human cognition in order to make a modest proposal that further emphasizes its importance and significance within a properly conceived ESC research program, in which, I argue, despite claims to the contrary, the distinction between 'embodied' and 'situated cognition' does not make much sense. My proposal has, I contend, profound implications for future work at the intersection of philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and socio-cultural studies, and possibly for re-conceiving these endeavors and their relations altogether.

The Bystander effect is a social phenomenon which holds that people’s ability to help reduces when amongst a crowd. Utilising the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, I explore why the presence of others can cause inaction in bystander situations. I argue that people have an over-reliance on each other to make sense of the world. As a result, there is a lapse in one’s generic understanding of the world which is caused by a difficulty in determining which social norm one ought to follow. I argue, as a consequence of this collapse in mutual understanding, inaction becomes the norm. Following this, I examine the anomalies of the Bystander Effect with a particular focus on helping strangers who had no prior relation to the victim or medical training. I determine using the Heideggerian notions of ‘resoluteness’ and ‘forerunning’ that these people help because they can interpret a situation independently of others. I conclude, by suggesting these strangers may be an interesting topic for future research.