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The designation of Diego Maradona's 'handball' goal, that it was an intervention by God himself, brings the phenomena of sport and religion into an interrelationship. The basic thesis of this paper is that, despite many of their phenomenal similarities, explicit religion is not, and cannot be, substantially related to sport, as the two manifest themselves in different ways of being. This thesis is supported by arguments from three philosophical areas: 1. The ontological dimension of the manifestation of the sacred in the profane through the process of hierophany in sport does not refer to a specific deity or God, and is therefore not a presentation but an indirect representation of the sacred; 2. The epistemological perspective of the intentional relation of consciousness to religious ritual justifies the necessity of situating them in an overall horizon of references and meanings to the horizon of the lifeworld; 3. The existential and experiential aspects of transformative sport experiences transform the horizon of meanings of empirical reality, but lack the sacramental perspective. Implicit religion as a possibility of transition on a continuum of complementary existential states is a suitable explicative framework for analyzing the phenomenal similarities and essential differences of religion and sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the metaphysics of science, it is often held that higher-level properties are grounded in micro-physical properties. According to many philosophers, however, phenomenal consciousness resists this view. Many famous arguments in Philosophy of Mind have been given to reject this notion. In this paper, we argue that there is something odd about the idea that phenomenal consciousness is a special case in science and give a constructive proposal on how consciousness can fit in the natural world. To do so, we will first introduce a general notion of what grounding is. Then, we will briefly explain how the arguments for the specialness of phenomenal consciousness work by considering two famous examples, namely the zombie and the knowledge argument. In a further step, we will briefly discuss two cases from other areas in science, i.e., in particle physics and chemistry. We will demonstrate that the standard view about the reductive relation does not hold, even in these paradigm cases of the natural sciences. If what we argue is true, we think that most arguments from phenomenal consciousness cannot defeat physicalism per se. Finally, we will introduce an alternative way to naturalize phenomenal consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent criticism, the search for neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) is still at the core of a contemporary neuroscience of consciousness. One common aim is to distinguish merely statistical correlates from "NCCs proper", i.e., NCCs that are uniquely associated with a conscious experience and lend themselves to a metaphysical interpretation. We should then distinguish between NCCs as data and NCCs as hypotheses, where the first is just recorded data while the second goes beyond any set of recorded data. Still, such NCC-hypotheses ought to be testable. Here, I present a framework for so-called "sufficiency tests." We can distinguish four different classes of such tests, depending on whether they predict creature consciousness (which systems are conscious), state consciousness (when a system is conscious), phenomenal content (what a system is conscious of), or phenomenal character (how a system experiences). For each kind of test, I provide examples from the empirical literature. I also argue that tests for phenomenal character (How-Tests) are preferable because they bracket problematic aspects of the other kinds of tests. However, How-Tests imply a metaphysical tie between the neural and phenomenal domain that is stronger than supervenience, delivers explanations but does not close the explanatory gap, uses first-person methods to test hypotheses, and thereby relies on a form of direct neurophenomenal structuralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loorits (2014) identifies the solution to the hard problem of consciousness in the possibility of fully analyzing seemingly non-structural aspects of consciousness in structural terms. However, research on consciousness conducted in recent decades has failed to bridge the explanatory gap between the brain and conscious mind. One reason why the explanatory gap cannot be filled, and consequently the problem remains hard, is that experience and neural structure are too different or "distant" to be directly compatible. Conversely, structural aspects of consciousness can be found in phenomenal experience. One possible alternative, therefore, is to seek the structure of seemingly non-structural aspects of consciousness not in the neural substrate, but within consciousness itself, through a phenomenal analysis of the qualitative aspects of experience, starting from its simplest forms. An essential premise is to reformulate the explanandum of consciousness, which is usually attributed to qualia and what it is like to be in a certain state. However, these properties do not allow us to identify the fundamental aspects of phenomenal experience. Sensations such as the redness of red or the painfulness of pain are inseparable from the context of the experience to which they belong, making qualia appear as phenomenal artifacts. Furthermore, the simplest qualitative aspects can be found in early vision. They are involved in perceptual organization and necessarily have relational significance. The unitary set of qualities found in early vision--such as those related to being an object, background or detail--constitutes the explanandum of the simplest forms of consciousness and seems to imply a justifying structure. Although early vision is characterized by interdependent qualitative components that form a unitary whole, we cannot find in it the structure of seemingly non-structural aspects of consciousness. Phenomenal appearance alone does not seem sufficient to identify a unitary structure of consciousness. However, the closeness of these characteristics to a unitary structure prompts us to delve into less explored territory, using the components of experience also as possible explanans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness: consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are false. Furthermore, making use of the resources of this view, we formulate distinct forms of both physicalism and anti-physicalism. On these formulations, it is easy to see how physicalists and anti-physicalists can accommodate the modal intuitions of their opponents regarding zombies and anti-zombies. We conclude that these formulations of physicalism and anti-physicalism are superior to their more traditional counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many philosophers tacitly accept the View: consciousness is necessary for being a welfare subject. That is, in order to be an eligible bearer of welfare goods and bads, an entity must be capable of phenomenal consciousness. However, this paper argues that, in the absence of a compelling rationale, we are not licensed to accept the View, because doing so amounts to fallacious reasoning in theorizing about welfare: insisting on the View when consciousness is not in fact important for welfare value in a systematic and significant way is objectionably "consciousist." As a result, the View does not advance our understanding of the value of consciousness. The paper further diagnoses why we may be attracted to the View, and what we should accept instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our pains can be more or less intense, our mental imagery can be more or less vivid, our perceptual experiences can be more or less striking. These degrees of intensity of conscious experiences are all manifestations of a phenomenal property I call mental strength. In this article, I argue that mental strength is a domain‐general phenomenal magnitude; in other words, it is a phenomenal quantity shared by all conscious experiences that explains their degree of felt intensity. Mental strength has been largely overlooked in favor of mental states' type, representational contents, domain‐specific phenomenology, or processes such as attention. Considering mental strength in our reflections about the mind illuminates debates about the relation of representational contents and phenomenal character, and it also helps address questions about the structure and functions of consciousness. Mental strength provides a unifying construct to model what is shared in the phenomenology of different types of conscious experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do we tend to think that phenomenal consciousness poses a hard problem? The answer seems to lie in part in the fact that we have the impression that phenomenal experiences are presented to us in a particularly immediate and revelatory way: we have a sense of acquaintance with our experiences. Recent views have offered resources to explain such persisting impression, by hypothesizing that the very design of our cognitive systems inevitably leads us to hold beliefs about our own experiences with certainty. I argue against this kind of "designed certainty" views. First, I claim that it is doubtful that we really hold beliefs about our own experiences with certainty—in any sense of certainty that would make our phenomenal beliefs special. Second, I claim that, even if it were the case that we hold beliefs about experiences with certainty, this would fall short of explaining our sense of acquaintance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consciousness and intelligence are properties that can be misunderstood as necessarily dependent. The term artificial intelligence and the kind of problems it managed to solve in recent years has been shown as an argument to establish that machines experience some sort of consciousness. Following Russell's analogy, if a machine can do what a conscious human being does, the likelihood that the machine is conscious increases. However, the social implications of this analogy are catastrophic. Concretely, if rights are given to entities that can solve the kind of problems that a neurotypical person can, does the machine have potentially more rights than a person that has a disability? For example, the autistic syndrome disorder spectrum can make a person unable to solve the kind of problems that a machine solves. We believe the obvious answer is no, as problem-solving does not imply consciousness. Consequently, we will argue in this paper how phenomenal consciousness, at least, cannot be modeled by computational intelligence and why machines do not possess phenomenal consciousness, although they can potentially develop a higher computational intelligence than human beings. In order to do so, we try to formulate an objective measure of computational intelligence and study how it presents in human beings, animals, and machines. Analogously, we study phenomenal consciousness as a dichotomous variable and how it is distributed in humans, animals, and machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, phenomenal consciousness has been restricted to the realm of perceptual and otherwise sensory experiences. If there is a kind of phenomenology altogether unlike sensory phenomenology, then this was a mistake, and requires an accounting. I argue such cognitive phenomenology exists by appealing to a phenomenal contrast case that relies on meaningful and relatively meaningless dialogue. I explain why previous phenomenal contrast arguments are less likely to be effective on even neutral parties to the debate: these arguments rely on a 'hard-to-understand' sentence, which may elicit sensory crutches that one focuses on, thereby obscuring cognitive phenomenology. I argue for a positive characterization of the phenomenal contrast in terms of seeming to be aware of abstract relations that obtain between different contributions in a dialogue. This paves the way for arguing that what it's like to entertain a cognitive content that p differs from that of q in their cognitive phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the transparency thesis, some conscious states are transparent or "diaphanous". This thesis is often believed to be incompatible with an inner‐awareness account of phenomenal consciousness. In this article, I reject this incompatibility. Instead, I defend a compatibilist approach to transparency. To date, most attempts to do so require a rejection of strong transparency in favor of weak transparency. In this view, transparent states can be attended to by attending (in the right way) to the presented world: that is, they are merely translucent. Here, I first argue that this understanding of transparency is too weak to qualify as a compatibilist view. Drawing on insights from Franz Brentano, I then describe a middle road between strong and weak transparency. The crucial idea is that, although transparent states cannot be attended to, they can be noticed (under suitable conditions). This view, I submit, allows supporters of inner awareness to commit themselves to a more interesting understanding of transparency—moderate transparency—that preserves the initial intuition underlying the transparency metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revue Klesis is the property of Revue Klesis and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Jaegwon Kim's pairing problem argument asserts that causal intersections require two pairing entities. Mental properties of souls being distinct are causally irrelevant since they are not reducible to physical properties. Because souls are non-spatial physical entities, they do not enter into paired causal relations. Thus, souls or irreducible mental causal interaction, is false. The author assesses and argues against Kim's pairing problem for substance dualism. Kim assumes that reality is fundamentally a physical one. Thus, the metaphysics of persons and causality is a strict physical one. The author argues from a Thomistic dualists view and a powers ontology perspective to show that agentive causality is fundamental. Lastly, physicalists have not given an adequate account of various mental states and its properties such as knowledge, phenomenal properties and free will which are subjective in nature and therefore known by the first-person point of view. Since physicalism fails to give an adequate account of the nature of consciousness and its possessor, it follows that physicalism is false. Since physicalism is false, Kim's argument against substance dualism is also false. The paper concludes that one is justified in holding to substance dualism and the coherence of mental causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested in the philosophy of mind that, contrasting with pure physical states, conscious states are those in which there is something that is like to be. Conscious states have a phenomenology. Assuming an intuitive distinction between sensory and cognitive conscious experiences, over the last years a debate has been established around the question about the phenomenal nature of our cognitive states, especially, our own thoughts. This has been called the cognitive phenomenology debate. A proper examination of the debate cannot be separated from a critical analysis of the ways in which we draw conclusions about the phenomenal components of our conscious lives. This paper examines some of the most fundamental problems deriving from the two main argumentative strategies used in the debate, namely, introspective reports and phenomenal contrasts. After analyzing how these strategies might support certain positions within the debate, the article explores how some aspects of the phenomenology of mathematical reasoning could enlighten the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Papineau's qualitative view, experiences instantiate both representational and phenomenal properties. The instantiation of phenomenal properties is people undergoing the relevant experience. In contrast, the instantiation of representational properties relies on changing relationships between the person and the environment in which the person is embedded. The upshot is that phenomenal and representational properties are only contingently related: phenomenal properties are neither identical to, nor supervene on, representational properties. In this article, the author gives a detailed criticism of Papineau's qualitative view. Papineau's qualitative view left unexplained the relevant causal role of consciousness in accounting for actions—assuming that a mental state only becomes conscious when it is poised to make a direct difference to what the subject believes and later remembers, how the subject reasons, what decisions the subject makes, and what rational actions the subject performs. The author argues that the same reasons that support Papineau's complaint that it is hard to see how distal particulars and properties make their way into the realm of consciousness—namely some traditional arguments against representationalism—also show that it is hard to see how phenomenal consciousness makes its way back into the outside world in explaining the rational control of actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I give an overview of the recent developments in the phenomenalism – intentionalism debate and try to show that the proposed solutions of neither sides are satisfying. The claims and arguments of the two parties are rather vague and attribute to intentional and phenomenal properties either a too weak or a too strong relationship: too weak in the sense that they establish only mere coexistence, or too strong in the sense that they attribute some a priori conceptual connection to intentional and phenomenal properties. I also compare these theories to other theories developed for solving the mind–body problem and argue that these former are much less elaborated. In the end of the paper I try to explain that all of this is not just a contingent feature of the topic, but has deep conceptual roots: intentionality and phenomenal consciousness are two quite distinct concepts on two quite distinct levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is part of Jaegwon. Kim's life's work that he has demonstrated that non-reductive physicalism is not an option in the philosophy of the mental. However, he also recognizes the problems of mentalism that cannot be solved by physicalism. This concerns above all phenomenal consciousness, which resists naturalization. In the philosophy of the mental, this addresses a very fundamental problem of what the place of the mental is in the physical world. It is Kim's merit in the philosophy of the mental to have shown non-reductive physicalism to be contradictory and qualitative experience to have shown its place as a phenomenon that cannot be explained physically. But Kim wants to be a physicalist and functionalist at the same time. For this he describes his position as "physicalism, or something near enough". It is to Kim's credit that he has presented non-reductive physicalism as a variation of British emergentism. But this raises a very fundamental problem, whether this is a valid research program of systematization of mental experience or whether it needs another research program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creature consciousness provides a physicalist account of the first-person awareness (contra Rosenthal). I argue that non-reductive consciousness is not about phenomenal qualia (Nagel’s what it is like to feel like something else); it is about the stream of awareness that makes any objects of perception epistemically available and ontologically present. This kind of consciousness is central, internally to one’s awareness. Externally, the feel about one’s significant other’s that “there is someone home” is quite important too. This is not substance dualism since creature consciousness and functional consciousness are both at different generality levels of physicalism. Surprisingly, pre-Hegel philosophy of pure subject is more fitting with the current engineering approach than analytical phenomenalism. The complementary view of subject- and object-related perspectives, may come from Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre; but here it is placed, securely within the physicalist paradigm. It is essential to the Engineering Thesis in Machine Consciousness, which helps us understand under what general conditions a machine would be first-person conscious, but when it is merely functionally conscious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to reconstruct Husserl’s two-pronged approach of sensory givenness. On the one hand, the phenomenological focus on intentional consciousness implies a virulent criticism of the positivistic myth of the sensory given. On the other hand, there is also a positive appeal to sensory givenness in phenomenology, without which phenomenology would not be worthy of its name and would, ultimately, be nothing other than a form of neo-Kantianism. In the context of transcendental genetic phenomenology, Husserl manages to rehabilitate sensory givenness in a reduced, viz. demythologized form. This reconstruction of Husserl’s ambivalent reference to the given can help phenomenology defend itself against some actual trends, which tend to reduce it to phenomenalism or to conceptualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the problem of E. Voegelin’s notion of experience: the positive meaning of this concept is not specified in any of the author’s works. Based on W. James’s ‘‘Essay on Radical Empiricism” and Voegelin’s late works, it is shown that Voegelin’s theory of consciousness is rooted in James‘s concept of “pure experience”, which essentially sought to close the epistemological chasm between subject and object, phenomena and noumena. According to this notion, mental and physical, subjective and objective realities are merely derivative aspects of a certain primordial pure experience, which is more elementary and fundamental than the two former aspects of reality. Finally, the article exposes other implications of this connection with James’s philosophy for E. Voegelin’s theory of consciousness.

Copyright of Problems / Problemos is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to the Phenomenal Unity Thesis ("PUT") – most prominently defended by Tim Bayne and David Chalmers – necessarily, any set of phenomenal states of a subject at a time is phenomenally unified. The standard formulation of this thesis is unacceptably vague because it does not specify what it is to be a subject. In this paper, I first consider possible meanings for 'subject' as used in PUT and argue that every plausible candidate definition renders the thesis trivially true. I consider and reject Tim Bayne's proposal that 'subject' means 'human being'. Then I argue, contra Bayne and Chalmers, that PUT is not incompatible with any major theory of consciousness, and contra Michael Tye, that split-brain patients do not provide evidence against PUT. I close by considering some nontrivial alternatives to PUT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While physicalist interpretations of human consciousness have been the major focus in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science during the last decades, many existing proposals expressly link phenomenal consciousness with human linguistic ability and build on the idea that we acquire cognitive access to consciousness through “higher-order” verbal thinking. Accepting this premise and the epistemological consequences of Jackson’s Knowledge Argument, this paper argues that the study of phenomenal knowledge as the one mediated by language might grow into a novel and promising research agenda for cognitive linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents literary criticism which claims that Henry James Sr.'s "Society the Redeemed Form of Man" contains passages that have striking pertinence for the psychological drama of Peyton Farquhar in Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Perception of James on the state of real creation; Concerns that relate to the linguistic phenomenalism surrounding the occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge; Distinction between post-mortem consciousness and moment-of-death consciousness.

The aim of this text is to show how, using the achievements of modern computer science, psychology and neurobiology, we can search for an answer to the question about the a priori mechanisms of shaping a phenomenal image of reality given by experience. This phenomenalism statement is very close to, so called, Bayesian model of mind by Karl Friesen. The author asks how in massive scale to reach the cognitive processes taking place without representation, outside the field of consciousness, which influence the formation of this model of the world. The result of the consideration is to be a neuromachine project whose task will be to automate and mass research of hidden cognitive attitudes. Its activity is to become a real alternative to opinion polls performed in the paradigm of the so-called declarative sociology, which do not provide results significantly reducing the risk of decision-making in management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What's the evidential impact of learning that something is a mystery? To answer this question, we first explicate the notion of a mystery in terms of unexplainability. After distinguishing different ways in which something can be unexplainable, we develop a test to evaluate the evidential impact of two distinct types of unexplainables: symmetrical and asymmetrical unexplainables. We argue that only asymmetrical unexplainables have evidential impact. We finally clarify how our explication of mysteries as unexplainables complements existing accounts of abduction and contributes to the literature on the mystery of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a widely held physicalist view, consciousness is identical with some physical or functional phenomenon just as liquidity is identical with loose molecular connection. To many of us, this claim about consciousness seems more problematic than the claim about liquidity. To many—including many physicalists—the identification of consciousness with some physical phenomenon even seems "absurd" (Papineau 2002) or "crazy" (Perry 2001). A full defence of physicalism should explain why the allegedly correct hypothesis comes across this way. If physicalism is true and we have reason to accept it, why does it seem "absurd"? One possibility is that this is fully explained by the fact that we have an erroneous understanding of consciousness or its physical basis. This explanation is embraced by few if any physicalists. It is rejected by many, including proponents of the "phenomenal concept strategy", which lately has become the dominant strategy for defending physicalism. But the "error explanation" is clearly the most plausible explanation that is available to physicalists. So this paper argues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceivability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths (cf. Chalmers in The conscious mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996; The character of consciousness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) in light of a hyperintensional regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability-i.e., the epistemic possibility-thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive phenomenalism is the view that occurrent thoughts are identical with, or constituted of, cognitive phenomenology. This paper raises a challenge for (standard forms of) this view: the cognitive fine-tuning problem. In broad brushstrokes the difficulty is that, for the cognitive phenomenalist, there is a distinction between three kinds of fact: cognitive phenomenal facts, sensory phenomenal facts, and functional facts. This distinction gives rise to the challenge of explaining why, in actuality, these three phenomena tend to be matched together in ways that respect norms of rationality. Various solutions to this problem are explored - divine intervention, value-involving laws of nature, or basic capacities to respond to reasons - all of which are wildly at odds with naturalism. If cognitive phenomenalists want their view to be consistent with naturalism, as many do, they must come up with a naturalistic solution to the cognitive fine-tuning problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is performing with responsive technology in a mixed work experienced by performers, and how may the notion of embodied cognition further our understanding of this interaction? These questions are addressed here analysing accounts from singers performing the author’s mixed work Metamorphoses (2015). Combining semi-structured interviews and inspiration from Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, questions concerning the ‘self’ when listening, singing, moving and relating to fellow musicians, as well as the relationship towards the computer, are explored. The results include a notion of the computer as neither separated nor detached but both, and highlight the importance of the situation, including not only the here and now but also social and cultural dimensions. The discussion emphasises the role of sensorimotor interaction and bodily experience in human meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goals of this paper are two. First, it articulates what kinds of knowing pure knowing (liang zhi) is in its narrow sense (approval and disproval) (1) pure knowing as the capacity of moral judgment; (2) pure knowing (of Heavenly principle) as moral knowledge and standard. Besides, it analyses pure knowing’s different features through a phenomenological description. All these aspects of pure knowing are tied by moral feeling. Second, this paper addresses two sets of theoretical problems that have been raised in Confucian discourse with respect to pure knowing and Heavenly principle, primarily those that render Wang’s notion of pure knowing to be static recognition toward particular moral issues, or immediate response, which reading cannot really admit the possibilities of extension, reflection, moral cultivation, and reform of institution; and those that understand pure knowing to be merely abstract without concrete content, such as merely being a metaphysical substance. When properly understood, that is, from the perspective of moral emotions, Wang Yangming’s account of pure knowing provides for the possibilities of enhancement and cultivation, while insisting that the content of pure knowing is always accessible to us. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many contemporary views on unity of consciousness adopt a bottom-up approach: a subject has several conscious experiences at a time, which are unified in virtue of a special relationship. In this paper I explore an alternative, top-down approach, according to which (to a first approximation) a subject has one single conscious experience at a time. I present three top-down approaches: Priority unity monism, Existence unity monism, and Brentanian unity monism. The first two are defined in analogy with the homonymous metaphysical theories of object composition. Brentanian monism retraces Franz Brentano's view on unity of consciousness, and is defined by appeal to some of his mereological ideas. I argue that the latter is the best top-down approach to unity of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I raise the question about consciousness, which stems from a philosophical issue. Distinguishes here two ontologies: the fi rst resulting from the existence of the physical world, including biological, and the other, resulting from the assessment of the existence of non-biological beings, focusing primarily on the artifi cial intelligence. Ontological origins is crucial here to a finally modal treatment of such phenomena as intelligence or consciousness. I'm going to describe these phenomena as arising from these two ontologically diff erent substrates, but in some way being similar. Th e consequence of this expanded understanding of intelligence and consciousness shows that they are the feature, and not the property of human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical assessment of Michael Tye's and David Chalmers' criticisms of the phenomenal concept strategy. The assessment is done with a view to defend the phenomenal concept strategy against Tye's and Chalmers' arguments. The phenomenal concept strategy is a strategy developed by physicalists to defend physicalism in the attempt to address the problem of consciousness. For Michael Tye, who was previously an advocate of the phenomenal concept strategy, there is the possibility that two or more distinct phenomenal concepts can refer to the same phenomenal experience and this indicates that phenomenal concepts have no special status as claimed by physicalists and are, in turn, not concepts at all. David Chalmers, on the other hand, raises a dilemma for the phenomenal concept strategy by stating that it is either that the strategy cannot explain the epistemic reality (i.e. knowledge) of consciousness or that the strategy cannot explain this knowledge in physicalist terms. Any of these two indicates that the phenomenal concept strategy is unsuccessful. This paper posits that Tye's and Chalmers' criticisms misrepresent the stance of the phenomenal concept strategy. This paper maintains that the phenomenal concept strategy, if understood differently, still provides a plausible support for physicalism in addressing the problem of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I focus on an influential account of phenomenal concepts, the recognitional account, and defend it from some recent challenges. According to this account, phenomenal concepts are recognitional concepts that we use when we recognize experiences as “another one of those.” Michael Tye has argued that this account is viciously circular because the relevant recognitional abilities involve descriptions of the form “another experience of the same type,” which is also a phenomenal concept. Tye argues that we avoid the circularity worry if we explain the reference-fixing of phenomenal concepts in terms of dispositions to re-identify tokens of the same type without appealing to any further phenomenal concepts. However, he argues, this account is incompatible with the intuitive claim that phenomenal concepts seem to involve rich modes of presentation of their referents. Philip Goff and others have similarly argued that a recognitional account of phenomenal concepts would make phenomenal concepts opaque, that is, unable to reveal anything about their referents, which seems problematic. In this paper, I present a new version of the recognitional account that avoids the circularity worry without entailing that phenomenal concepts are opaque. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dreaming can be explained as the product of an interaction among memory processes, elaborative processes, and phenomenal awareness. A feedback circuit is activated by this interaction according to the associative links and the requirements of the dream scene. Recently, it has been hypothesized that a partial similarity exists between dreaming and mind wandering and that these two processes may involve the same neural default network. This commentary discusses the differences and similarities between phenomenal consciousness during dreaming and phenomenal consciousness during mind wandering from the perspective of the “continuity” of engagement of cognitive systems. The greatest difference consists in the lack ofreality testingduring dreaming. Dream imagery is hallucinatory by nature. Consequently, the simulated world in dreams makes dream imagery more akin to perception. In contrast, the imagery of mind wandering is more similar to imagination. The level of meta-awareness is preserved more frequently and to a greater degree in mind wandering. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary criticism of the book "Sensorama," by Michael Pelczar is presented. Topics discussed include the analysis of Pelczar's notion of live prospect of physical spacetime in the phenomenalist reduction aspect, the theory of physical objects and consciousness considering claims of counterfactual conscious experiences, and Pelczar's claims on the temporality of consciousness.

The author comments on the notion of Michael Pelczar on the metaphysics of conscious experiences and its existence in time and the human construction of the spatio-temporal physical world through experiences, reflecting to his book "Sensorama." Topics discussed include the author's objection on the notion of the temporality of consciousness, the evidences showing the experiences in time, and the role of consciousness on the unification of experiences.

‘What it is like' talk ( ’WIL-talk) — the use of phrases such as ‘what it is like ’ — is ubiquitous in discussions of phenomenal consciousness. It is used to define, make claims about, and to offer arguments concerning consciousness. But what this talk means is unclear, as is how it means what it does: how, by putting these words in this order, we communicate something about consciousness. Without a good account of WIL-talk, we cannot be sure this talk sheds light, rather than casts shadows, on our investigations of consciousness. The popular technical account of WIL-talk (see e.g. Lewis, 1995, and Kim, 1998) holds that WIL-talk involves technical terms — terms which look like everyday words but have a distinct meaning — introduced by philosophers. I argue that this account is incorrect by showing that the alleged technical terms were not introduced by philosophers, and that these terms do not have a technical meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenal character of conscious experience has long been regarded as the major problem for physicalist accounts of consciousness. In recent years, defenders of physicalism have typically been relying on the so-called Phenomenal Concept Strategy (PCS) to avoid dualism. In this paper, we argue with PCS that cognitive-physicalistic explanations can account for the peculiarities of phenomenal character. However, we think that the conceptual features PCS investigates are not the genuine causes of the special characteristics of phenomenal consciousness but only symptoms, which can themselves be explained in terms of the features of the sensory-perceptual representations underlying conscious experiences, namely that some, but not all, of these states are representationally unstructured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservatives claim that all phenomenal properties are sensory. Liberals countenance non-sensory phenomenal properties such as what it's like to perceive some high-level property, and what it's like to think that p. A hallmark of phenomenal properties is that they present an explanatory gap, so to resolve the dispute we should consider whether experience has non-sensory properties that appear 'gappy'. The classic tests for 'gappiness' are the invertibility test and the zombifiability test. I suggest that these tests yield conflicting results: non-sensory properties lend themselves to zombie scenarios but not to inversion scenarios. Which test should we trust? Against Carruthers & Veillet, I argue that invertibility is not a viable condition of phenomenality. In contrast, being zombifiable is credibly necessary and sufficient for phenomenality. I conclude that there are non-sensory properties of experience that are 'gappy' in the right way, and that liberalism is therefore the most plausible position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that it is at least open to a proponent of type materialism for phenomenal consciousness to accept Hill's representational theory of experiential awareness of perceptual qualia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many philosophers hold one of two extreme views about our capacity to have phenomenally conscious experience ('inner-sense'): either (i) that inner-sense enables us to know our experience and its properties infallibly or (ii) the contrary conviction that inner-sense is utterly fallible and the evidence it provides completely defeasible. Both of these are in error. This paper presents an alternative conception of inner-sense, modeled on disjunctive conceptions of perceptual awareness, that avoids both erroneous extremes, but that builds on the commonsense intuitions that motivate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One popular approach to theorizing about phenomenal consciousness has been to connect it to representations of a certain kind. Representational theories of consciousness can be further sub-divided into first-order and higher-order theories. Higher-order theories are often interpreted as invoking a special relation between the first-order state and the higher-order state. However there is another way to interpret higher-order theories that rejects this relational requirement. On this alternative view phenomenal consciousness consists in having suitable higher-order representations. I call this 'HOROR' ('Higher-Order Representation Of a Representation') theory to distinguish it from relational versions of higher-order theory. In this paper I make the case that HOROR theory is a plausible account of the real nature of phenomenal consciousness whatever one's views are about whether it is physical/reducible or not. I first clarify HOROR theory and compare it to the more traditional same-order and higher-order thought theories. Afterwards I move to presenting some considerations in favor of HOROR theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]