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Tag Archives: brain
Neuroscience for Buddhists: Externalism Nicely Explained
At the New York Review of Books, Tim Parks recounts his experience of having a beer with Riccardo Manzotti, a man who believes that consciousness does not reside in the brain. Monzotti is an externalist who thinks the subject-object split … Continue reading
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Tagged brain, consciousness, externalism, mind, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, science
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I Connectome, Therefore I Am?
Sebastian Seung is Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in his new book, Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are (Houghton Mifflin 2012), he defines a connectome in the following manner: … Continue reading
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Tagged Ayn Rand, brain, consciousness, individuality, life, mind, naturalism, neurobiology, neurons, Sebastian Seung
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David Chalmers on Hard v. Soft Emergence with Regard to Consciousness
David Chalmers discusses hard v. soft emergence and why consciousness falls into the former category:
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Tagged atheism, brain, cognitive science, david chalmers, dualism, emergence, God, materialism, mind, philosophy, qualia
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Qualia Defined
Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), admirably explains what philosophers and neuroscientists mean when they talk about qualia:
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Tagged brain, cognition, color, consciousness, love, perception, philosophy, psychology, qualia, self
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Promissory Materialism and Second Coming Messianism?
This struck me as a provocative way to frame materialism v. dualism. It comes from a 2003 paper in NeuroQuantology, and it was written by Donald Watson and Bernard Wilson: The “psychophysical identity” proposition is today’s most popular model for … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, brain, dualism, God, materialism, mind, mind-body problem, near-death experiences, science, second coming, sir john eccles
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The Mind’s Dependency on the Brain? Bryan Appleyard on the Final Frontier of Atheism v. Theism
Two years ago, journalist Bryan Appleyard wrote an interesting review of The Spiritual Brain, a book by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, and started his review this way: Neuroscience is a combat zone. It is here, in the human brain, that the final conflict … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, biology, body, brain, mind, philosophy, psychology, science, theism
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“One upsets the other”: Aldous Huxley on the Rational Brain’s Tension with the Irrational Brain
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Tagged agnostic, agnosticism, aldous huxley, atheism, atheist, brain, brave new world, mind, philosophy, psychology, religion
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Biologist PZ Myers v. Calvinist Philosopher Alvin Plantinga: Is the Brain a Reliable Perceiver of Truth? And if Not, Can Scientific Procedures Function, As It Were, as Vitamin Supplements to Our Otherwise Pallid and Unreliable Monkey Brains?
Biologist PZ Myers today fisks Calvinist philosopher Alvin Plantinga’s essay (written last summer) in which Plantinga claims that evolutionary naturalism is not a coherent intellectual position because we can have no confidence that our brains have evolved to reliably discern truth from error, including the … Continue reading
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Tagged Alvin Plantinga, apologetics, biology, brain, creationism, Discovery Institute, evolution, Genesis, philosophy, PZ Myers, science
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Is Neuroscience Closing in on the Soul—Literally?
See here and here for reflections on whether or not there is still room for a ghost in the machine. Money quote from neuroscientist Martha Farah: Brain imaging indicates that all of these traits have physical correlates in brain function. Furthermore, … Continue reading
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Tagged brain, Charles Darwin, evolution, ghosts, Jesus, life, mind, neuroscience, philosophy, religion, science, soul
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There is a Certain Slant of Light: The View from Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom Window
Dickinson family’s Amherst homestead. Emily’s bedroom was on the second story. Here’s one of her poems: I felt a Cleaving in my Mind– As if my Brain had split– I tried to match it–Seem by Seem– But could not make them … Continue reading
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Tagged Amherst, balls, brain, brain had split, certain, cleaving in my mind, darkness, death, Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson's bedroom, Emily Dickinson's bedroom window, floor, I felt a Cleaving in my Mind, life, light, literature, poetry, seem by seem, Sequence, there is a certain slant of light
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Gay for brains?
The Washington Post reports today on yet another major study linking homosexuality with brain differences. The evidence is not conclusive, as reading the article fairly notes, but if scientists, over the next twenty years, solidly lock down the evidence that … Continue reading
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Tagged brain, brain differences, Buddha, Buddhism, Christian, Christianity, civil rights, discrimination, environment, free will v determinism, gay, gay marriage, gay rights, genes, Hindu, Hinduism, homosexual, hormones, Islam, James Dobson, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Macarthur, Mc Master University, Muslim, Ontario, Pastor Michael Alexander, Politics, religion, same-sex marriage, Sandra Witelson, science, sexual orientation, The Washington Post, womb
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