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The content and epistemology of phenomenal beliefIn Aleksandar Jokic & Quentin Smith (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives, Oxford University Press. 2002.Experiences and beliefs are different sorts of mental states, and are often taken to belong to very different domains. Experiences are paradigmatically phenomenal, characterized by what it is like to have them. Beliefs are paradigmatically intentional, characterized by their propositional content. But there are a number of crucial points where these domains intersect. One central locus of intersection arises from the existence of phenomenal beliefs: beliefs that are about experiences
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What is the unity of consciousnessIn Axel Cleeremans (ed.), The Unity of Consciousness: Binding, Integration, and Dissociation, Oxford University Press. pp. 497-539. 2003.At any given time, a subject has a multiplicity of conscious experiences. A subject might simultaneously have visual experiences of a red book and a green tree, auditory experiences of birds singing, bodily sensations of a faint hunger and a sharp pain in the shoulder, the emotional experience of a certain melancholy, while having a stream of conscious thoughts about the nature of reality. These experiences are distinct from each other: a subject could experience the red book without the singing…Read more
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4Perception and the fall from EdenIn Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press. pp. 49--125. 2006.In the Garden of Eden, we had unmediated contact with the world. We were directly acquainted with objects in the world and with their properties. Objects were simply presented to us without causal mediation, and properties were revealed to us in their true intrinsic glory
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38'TT Ontology, the Hard Problem of Experience,-*'-*'Free Will, and Agency'In Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak & Alwyn Scott (eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness II: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates, Mit Press. pp. 2--79. 1998.
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Connectionist Models: Proceedings of the 1990 Summer School Workshop. (edited book)Morgan Kaufmann. 1992.
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35437Philosophers on Philosophy: The 2020 PhilPapers SurveyPhilosophers' Imprint 23 (11). 2023.What are the philosophical views of professional philosophers, and how do these views change over time? The 2020 PhilPapers Survey surveyed around 2000 philosophers on 100 philosophical questions. The results provide a snapshot of the state of some central debates in philosophy, reveal correlations and demographic effects involving philosophers' views, and reveal some changes in philosophers' views over the last decade.
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37Uploading: A Philosophical AnalysisIn Russell Blackford & Damien Broderick (eds.), Intelligence Unbound, Wiley. 2014-08-11.This chapter describes three relatively specific forms such as destructive uploading, gradual uploading, and nondestructive uploading. Neuroscience is gradually discovering various neural correlates of consciousness, but this research program largely takes the existence of consciousness for granted. It presents an argument for the pessimistic view and an argument for the optimistic view, both of which run parallel to related arguments that can be given concerning teletransportation. Cryonic tech…Read more
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3603Does thought require sensory grounding? From pure thinkers to large language modelsProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 97 22-45. 2023.Does the capacity to think require the capacity to sense? A lively debate on this topic runs throughout the history of philosophy and now animates discussions of artificial intelligence. Many have argued that AI systems such as large language models cannot think and understand if they lack sensory grounding. I argue that thought does not require sensory grounding: there can be pure thinkers who can think without any sensory capacities. As a result, the absence of sensory grounding does not enta…Read more
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47Consciousness and its Place in NatureIn Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction1 The Problem Arguments Against Materialism Type‐A Materialism Type‐B Materialism15 The Two‐Dimensional Argument Against Type‐B Materialism Type‐C Materialism Interlude Type‐D Dualism Type‐E Dualism Type‐F Monism Conclusions.
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24The Matrix as MetaphysicsIn Susan Schneider (ed.), Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, Wiley. 2016.In this chapter, the author says that the standard view of brain‐in‐a‐vat scenario is endorsed by the people who created The Matrix. The author argues that the hypothesis that he is envatted is not a skeptical hypothesis, but a metaphysical hypothesis. That is, it is a hypothesis about the underlying nature of reality. According to the author, the Matrix Hypothesis is equivalent to a version of the following three‐part Metaphysical Hypothesis. First, physical processes are fundamentally computat…Read more
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24The SingularityIn Susan Schneider (ed.), Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, Wiley. 2016.This chapter provides a rich philosophical discussion of superintelligence, a widely discussed piece that has encouraged philosophers of mind to take transhumanism, mind uploading, and the singularity more seriously. It starts with the argument for a singularity: is there good reason to believe that there will be an intelligence explosion? Next, the chapter considers how to negotiate the singularity: if it is possible that there will be a singularity, how can we maximize the chances of a good ou…Read more
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12Peter McLaren: Revolutionary Critical PedagogueEducational Philosophy and Theory 37 (5): 764-770. 2005.
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5A Peer Group Assessment of a Radical Pedagogical ActivistEducational Philosophy and Theory 37 (5): 761-764. 2005.
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1517The computational and the representational language-of-thought hypothesesBehavioral and Brain Sciences 46. 2023.There are two versions of the language-of-thought hypothesis (LOT): Representational LOT (roughly, structured representation), introduced by Ockham, and computational LOT (roughly, symbolic computation) introduced by Fodor. Like many others, I oppose the latter but not the former. Quilty-Dunn et al. defend representational LOT, but they do not defend the strong computational LOT thesis central to the classical-connectionist debate.
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Perception and the fall from EdenIn Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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18218Could a large language model be conscious?Boston Review 1. 2023.[This is an edited version of a keynote talk at the conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) on November 28, 2022, with some minor additions and subtractions.] There has recently been widespread discussion of whether large language models might be sentient or conscious. Should we take this idea seriously? I will break down the strongest reasons for and against. Given mainstream assumptions in the science of consciousness, there are significant obstacles to consciousness in c…Read more
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1Three puzzles about spatial experienceIn Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Blockheads! Essays on Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness, Mit Press. 2019.
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Consciousness and its place in natureIn Josh Weisberg (ed.), Consciousness (Key Concepts in Philosophy), Polity. 2014.
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975Zeno Goes to Copenhagen: A Dilemma for Measurement-Collapse Interpretations of Quantum MechanicsIn M. C. Kafatos, D. Banerji & D. C. Struppa (eds.), Quantum and Consciousness Revisited, Dk Publisher. 2023.A familiar interpretation of quantum mechanics (one of a number of views sometimes labeled the "Copenhagen interpretation'"), takes its empirical apparatus at face value, holding that the quantum wave function evolves by the Schrödinger equation except on certain occasions of measurement, when it collapses into a new state according to the Born rule. This interpretation is widely rejected, primarily because it faces the measurement problem: "measurement" is too imprecise for use in a fundamental…Read more
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507Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of PhilosophyW. W. Norton. 2022.A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that's the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of "technophilosophy," David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along…Read more
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2008Interpretivism and InferentialismAnalysis 81 (3): 524-535. 2021.Robbie Williams’ (2020) book The Metaphysics of Representation is the new leading edge of the program of naturalizing intentionality. Williams brings sophistica.
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5020Inferentialism, Australian styleProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 92. 2021.
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New York UniversityDepartment of Philosophy
Center For Mind, Brain And ConsciousnessUniversity Professor
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
PhilPapers Editorships
21 more