Browsing All Posts filed under »Philosophy of Mind«

How Many Lego Bricks to Build a Mind?

January 30, 2017 by

52

How many Lego bricks would it take to build a conscious, rational mind? This may sound like an absurd question. Lego bricks don’t seem like the sort of thing that you could build a mind out of. (At least, I’m assuming that artificial intelligence researchers aren’t currently tinkering away in their state-of-the-art labs with a […]

Barack Obama Is Not My Father: A Simple Argument Against Physicalism

March 26, 2016 by

29

The following is a rather simple (simplistic?) argument against certain forms of physicalism*, specifically, those forms which identify the conscious mind with physical processes of the brain. The argument starts with the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals (thank you, Leibniz), which is usually uncontroversial: If A and B are one and the same thing, […]

Put Down the Axe, Ockham! Objections to Substance Dualism (Part 2)

October 27, 2015 by

40

This is the second in a series of posts answering the most common objections to substance dualism (see the intro here, and the first response here). I will argue that an appeal to Ockham’s razor does not, at present, carry any weight against substance dualism, and the principle is only relevant as a hypothetical qualifier […]

Hey, Neuroscience, Why Can’t We Be Friends? Objections to Substance Dualism (Part 1)

October 7, 2015 by

34

For many who’ve taken philosophy courses at the university level (let alone those who teach philosophy), substance dualism appears to be a theory with, dare I say it, no substance. It’s not a “live option.” But, to extend the pun, I think it’s the dismissal, not the theory, that lacks substance. In the introduction to this series of posts, I […]

Picked Last in (Meta) Phys-Ed

January 31, 2015 by

20

“Hey, heads up, guys. Here comes Substance Dualism” If contemporary philosophy were a high school and theories were students, Substance Dualism would be the kid who has a reputation for bad breath, horrible fashion sense, a shady family history, and for saying gauche and tactless things on a regular basis. The cool kids wouldn’t be […]

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