Los Angeles, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics
Philosophy of Law
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion
  •  13
    Consciousness as a contextually emergent property of self-sustaining systems
    with Marcello Ghin
    Mind and Matter 4 (1): 45-68. 2006.
    The concept of contextual emergence has been introduced as a speci?c kind of emergence in which some, but not all of the conditions for a higher-level phenomenon exist at a lower level. Further conditions exist in contingent contexts that provide stability conditions at the lower level, which in turn accord the emergence of novelty at the higher level. The purpose of the present paper is to propose that consciousness is a contextually emergent property of self-sustaining systems. The core assump…Read more
  •  15
    Varieties of Causation in Consciousness Studies
    with H. Atmanspacher and R. Bishop
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (5-6): 7-11. 2012.
    In cognitive neuroscience and in philosophy of mind, causation is a notion that is immensely important but usually not defined precisely enough to afford careful application. A widespread basic flaw is the confusion of causation with correlation. All empirical knowledge in the sciences is based on observing correlations; assigning causal relations to them or interpreting them causally always requires a theoretical background that is implicitly or (better) explicitly stated. This entails that dif…Read more
  •  8
    Varieties of Causation in Consciousness Studies
    with Harald Atmanspacher and Robert C. Bishop
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (5-6): 5-6. 2012.
    In cognitive neuroscience and in philosophy of mind, causation is a notion that is immensely important but usually not defined precisely enough to afford careful application. A widespread basic flaw is the confusion of causation with correlation. All empirical knowledge in the sciences is based on observing correlations; assigning causal relations to them or interpreting them causally always requires a theoretical background that is implicitly or (better) explicitly stated. This entails that dif…Read more
  • After Nature: On Bodies, Consciousness, and Causality
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (5-6): 229-250. 2012.
    Within John Dewey's pragmatic naturalism, consciousness, meaning, and value were conceptualized as ontologically real phenomena. During the century that has passed since Dewey's time, naturalism has come to be dominated by physicalist and realist perspectives within which the reality of consciousness, meaning, and value are problematic. Given this historical tension in naturalism, the present paper does the following: describes why consciousness, causality, and the body were all at home in Dewey…Read more