• As the view that the mind has a physical cause becomes increasingly more difficult to refute, both philosophy and science must face the fact that having experiences, qualia, consciousness in short, is simply not deducible from within our physical theories. Indeed, all the power physics shows for qualitative explanation is adduced from outside the actual formality of its theories. Our physical theories describe vibrations and stochastic correlates of motion, and there is no principled way to expl…Read more
  • The Boundary Problem for Phenomenal Individuals
    In Stuart Hameroff, Kaszniak R., W. Alfred & Alwyn Scott (eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness Ii: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates, Mit Press. 1998.
  • William Lycan, Consciousness and Experience (review)
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 5 (1): 125-126. 1998.
  •  195
    What place does consciousness have in the natural world? If we reject materialism, could there be a credible alternative? In one classic example, philosophers ask whether we can ever know what is it is like for bats to sense the world using sonar. It seems obvious to many that any amount of information about a bat's physical structure and information processing leaves us guessing about the central questions concerning the character of its experience. A Place for Consciousness begins with reflect…Read more
  •  4
    Introduction: The Methods of Ontology
    Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy 5. 1997.
  •  76
    Rethinking nature: A hard problem within the hard problem
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1): 76-88. 1996.
    If experience cannot be explained reductively, then we must embrace a revised understanding of nature to explain it. What kind of revision is required? A minimal revision would merely append a theory of experience onto an otherwise adequate theory of cognition, without going far beyond considerations peculiar to the study of the mind. I argue that we will need a more expansive revision, requiring us to rethink the natural order quite generally. If this is right, we will view the mind as a specia…Read more
  • Methods of Ontology
    Electronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy 5. 1997.
  •  150
    Recent trends in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science can be fruitfully characterized as part of the ongoing attempt to come to grips with the very idea of homo sapiens--an intelligent, evolved, biological agent--and its signature contribution is the emergence of a philosophical anthropology which, contra Descartes and his thinking thing, instead puts doing at the center of human being. Applying this agency-oriented line of thinking to the problem of representation, this paper introduces…Read more
  •  3
    On the Intrinsic Nature of the Physical
    In Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak & A. C. Scott (eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness III, Mit Press. 1999.
    In its original context Hawking was writing about the significance of physics for questions about God's existence and responsibility for creation. I am co-opting the sentiment for another purpose, though. As stated Hawking could equally be directing the question at concerns about the seemingly abstract information physics conveys about the world, and the full body of facts contained in the substance of the world. Would even a complete and adequate physics tell us all the general facts about the …Read more
  •  226
    Content and action: The guidance theory of representation
    Journal of Mind and Behavior 29 (1-2): 55-86. 2008.
    The current essay introduces the guidance theory of representation, according to which the content and intentionality of representations can be accounted for in terms of the way they provide guidance for action. The guidance theory offers a way of fixing representational content that gives the causal and evolutionary history of the subject only an indirect role, and an account of representational error, based on failure of action, that does not rely on any such notions as proper functions, ideal…Read more