Thomas Metzinger

As Flanagan remarks at the outset, many philosophers and researchers in the cognitive and neurosciences today believe that a naturalistic solution to the mind-body problem will eventually be found. Optimistic attitudes of this sort are usually inspired by the remarkable theoretical success so far achieved under the information-processing approach. The information-processing approach rests on a number of ubiquitous background assumptions. The most central of these is that treating human beings and their brains as information-processing systems may open precisely those levels of description under which the classical philosophical questions can be reformulated and finally answered. Many philosophers today try to treat traditional puzzles in this field - like the mind-brain-relationship, intentionality or self-awareness - by analyzing them in a top-down-fashion, i.e. by reformulating them in an information-processing terminology. In doing so one of their goals, usually, is eventually to naturalize those theoretical problems, to transform them into problems tractable by empirical science.

This article explores the ‘no-self alternative’ in the debate on the metaphysical and phenomenological concept of the self. It suggests that the no-self alternative may not be an alternative at all and it could simply be the default assumption for all rational approaches to self-consciousness and subjectivity. It outlines several different anti-realist arguments about the self and explains why the idea that there are no selves is counter-intuitive. It shows why the intuitions of phenomenology are traceable to the contingent fact about the causal structure of our brains, which induces in each of us a first-person perspective that makes it difficult to deny the existence of selves.

In this speculative paper I would like to show how important the integration of mental content is for a theory of phenomenal consciousness. I will draw the reader's attention to two manifestations of this problem which already play a role in the empirical sciences concerned with consciousness: The binding problem and the superposition problem. In doing so I hope to be able to leave the welltrodden paths of the debate over consciousness. My main concern is to gain a fresh access to the familiar theoretical difficulties associated with the concept of 'consciousness'.

Cognitive enhancement aims at optimizing a specific class of information-processing functions: cognitive functions, physically realized by the human brain. This article deals with ethical issues in cognitive enhancement. It discusses some standard conceptual issues related to the notion of “cognitive enhancement” and then continues from a purely descriptive point of view by briefly reviewing some empirical aspects and sketching the current situation. Several enhancement strategies are being tested and used. Then the chapter offers some reflections on the treatment or enhancement distinction. It turns to normative issues by describing standard topics in current debates, then highlighting three examples of relevant novel questions under an ethical perspective. It is of central importance to be able to draw on long-term studies yielding data on the benefits, risks, and side-effects involved in the use of such substances over months and years. It concludes by making some general proposals for policy makers.

In Kenneth Einar Himma’s substantial commentary, there are a number of conceptual misunderstandings I want to get out of the way first. This will allow us to see the core of his contribution much clearer. On page 2, Himma writes about the problem of “explaining how it is that a particular phenomenal self is associated with a set of neurophysiological processes.” This philosophical question is ill posed: no one is identical to a particular phenomenal self. “Phenomenal self” must not be conflated with “me.” Under SMT, phenomenal selves, in standard situations, are highly specific forms of representational content. They are not particulars in an ontological sense. First, Himma introduces the notion of a “mental subject,” without giving any defining characteristics. He then proceeds to make a strong claim about conceptual necessity, presenting it as selfevident without an independent argument: “…it is not conceptually possible for a conscious mental state to occur that is not instantiated by a mental subject”. I must admit that I do not have this modal intuition, the point is not self-evident to me.

The article presents a critical survey of the philosophical discussion of the mind-body-problem since the collapse of Rylean behaviourism. The major theories (identity theories, supervenience, emergentist materialism, dualist interactionism and functionalism) are sketched and briefly evaluated with regard to their advantages and disadvantages. The conclusion is that no satisfactory theory about the relation between mental and neurophysiological states exists today, but considerable progress has been made regarding the contours of this cluster of problems. A catalogue of criteria which every future theory concerning the mind-body problem must fulfill is given at the end.

differences between dreaming and waking consciousness as well. In this chapter, we will argue that these differences mainly concern the subjective quality of the dreaming experience. The interesting question, from a philosophical point of view, is not so much whether or not dreams are conscious experiences at all. Rather, one must ask in what sense dreams can be considered as conscious experiences, and what happens to the experiential subject during the dream state. Finally, in order to arrive at a more differentiated understanding of dream consciousness, we will contrast our analysis of ordinary dreams with lucid dreams, as well as with the varying degrees of lucidity and cognitive clarity seen in semi-lucid and prelucid dreams

Let me begin by focusing on the long list of agreements between the Dan Zahavi and me. As he is such a careful and scholarly author, there are almost no misunderstandings to get out of the way first. At the beginning of section 2, there is a conflation of different concepts of possibility. If we grant that imaginability is conceivability, if we pass over “practical” possibility as a non-defined term, and grant that by “physically” possible Zahavi very likely means “nomologically” possible, it still would present a major step to say that something is conceptually or metaphysically possible. Not everything that is logically or conceptually possible is metaphysically possible as well—metaphysically possible worlds have to be interpreted as a subset of logically possible worlds. How this can be done is a subject of intense and highly technical debates in current philosophy of mind. We cannot possibly enter this debate here, but let me just point out how, for instance, Zahavi’s remarks in the second paragraph of page 4 rest on a conflation between nomological and logical possibility.

Of all the current philosophical attempts to rescue the concept of “self” by working out a weaker version, one that does not imply an ontological substance or an individual in the metaphysical sense, Marcello Ghin’s is clearly my favorite. His reconstruction of the original theory is absolutely accurate and without any major misunderstandings. Enriching the concept of a “SMT-system” with the notions of “autocatalysis” and “self- sustainment,” and adding the intriguing idea that we are systems reflecting these processes on a new level of complexity, namely with the help of an integrated PSM on the level of conscious experience, seems the way to go if one wants to keep the concept of “self.” I have great difficulties in writing a reply to Ghin’s commentary, simply because I agree with so much in it. Let us see where his approach leads us

Die Übernahme des KI-Unternehmens DeepMind durch Google für rund eine halbe Milliarde US-Dollar signalisierte vor einem Jahr, dass von der KI-Forschung vielversprechende Ergebnisse erwartet werden. Spätestens seit bekannte Wissenschaftler wie Stephen Hawking und Unternehmer wie Elon Musk oder Bill Gates davor warnen, dass künstliche Intelligenz eine Bedrohung für die Menschheit darstellt, schlägt das KI-Thema hohe Wellen. Die Stiftung für Effektiven Altruismus (EAS, vormals GBS Schweiz) hat mit der Unterstützung von Experten/innen aus Informatik und KI ein umfassendes Diskussionspapier zu den Chancen und Risiken der künstlichen Intelligenz verfasst und geht darin auf aktuelle, mittel- und langfristige Herausforderungen im Bereich der KI-Entwicklung ein.

This metatheoretical paper develops a list of new research targets by exploring particularly promising interdisciplinary contact points between empirical dream research and philosophy of mind. The central example is the MPS-problem. It is constituted by the epistemic goal of conceptually isolating and empirically grounding the phenomenal property of “minimal phenomenal selfhood,” which refers to the simplest form of self-consciousness. In order to precisely describe MPS, one must focus on those conditions that are not only causally enabling, but strictly necessary to bring it into existence. This contribution argues that research on bodiless dreams, asomatic out-of-body experiences, and full-body illusions has the potential to make decisive future contributions. Further items on the proposed list of novel research targets include differentiating the concept of a “first-person perspective” on the subcognitive level; investigating relevant phenomenological and neurofunctional commonalities between mind-wandering and dreaming; comparing the functional depth of embodiment across dream and wake states; and demonstrating that the conceptual consequences of cognitive corruption and systematic rationality deficits in the dream state are much more serious for philosophical epistemology (and, perhaps, the methodology of dream research itself) than commonly assumed. The paper closes by specifying a list of potentially innovative research goals that could serve to establish a stronger connection between dream research and philosophy of mind.

To have an ontology is to interpret a world. In this paper we argue that the brain, viewed as a representational system aimed at interpreting our world, possesses an ontology too. It creates primitives and makes existence assumptions. It decomposes target space in a way that exhibits a certain invariance, which in turn is functionally significant. We will investigate which are the functional regularities guiding this decomposition process, by answering to the following questions: What are the explicit and implicit assumptions about the structure of reality, which at the same time shape the causal profile of the brain's motor output and its representational deep structure, in particular of the conscious mind arising from it (its ''phenomenal output'')? How do they constrain high-level phenomena like conscious experience, the emergence of a first-person perspective, or social cognition? By reviewing a series of neuroscientific results and integrating them with a wider philosophical perspective, we will emphasize the contribution the motor system makes to this process. As it will be shown, the motor system constructs goals, actions, and intending selves as basic constituents of the world it interprets. It does so by assigning a single, unified causal role to them. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the brain models movements and action goals in terms of multimodal representations of organism-object-relations. Under a representationalist analysis, this process can be conceived of as an internal, dynamic representation of the intentionality-relation itself. We will show how such a complex form of representational content, once it is in place, can later function as a functional building block for social cognition and for a more complex, consciously experienced representation of the first-person perspective as well

Zoltan Jakab has presented an interesting conceptual analysis of the ineffability of qualia in a functionalist and classical cognitivist framework. But he does not want to commit himself to a certain metaphysical thesis on the ontology of consciousness or qualia. We believe that his strategy has yielded a number of highly relevant and interesting insights, but still suffers from some minor inconsistencies and a certain lack of phenomenological and empirical plausibility. This may be due to some background assumptions relating to the theory of mental representation employed. Jakab

Let me begin by pointing out a number of potential misunderstandings in Pierre Livet’s densely written commentary. In the first paragraph, Pierre Livet writes, “phenomenal transparency involves an implication of the existence of the entities represented”. This is what I call the “extensionality equivocation”. As explained at length in BNO, “phenomenal transparency” has been a technical term in philosophy at least since G. E. Moore’s paper The Refutation of Idealism. In BNO, I offered a refined notion of the concept. I also discussed at length that there are at least three other well-defined notions of “transparency” in the literature: epistemic transparency, referential transparency, and transparency as a property of information channels. I will not repeat myself here, but simply point out that the implication towards the existence of entities mentioned in certain sentences is a property of extensional contexts – and not, as Livet writes, of phenomenally transparent states. Let me quote from BNO, “transparency as a property of contexts is not what I am talking about here”. I assume that Livet’s first misunderstanding comes from the interesting analogy between sentences constituting extensional contexts and fully transparent phenomenal representations, which I drew attention to on the very same page.