Mind and Matter – consciousnessandstuff

J W Dunne and the infinite regress

I don’t think anyone reads J W Dunne any more, but he was very popular in the 1930s and published two rather remarkable books. In “An Experiment With Time” he claimed that our experience of time as linear is an illusion of human consciousness, and that in dreams we had simultaneous access to past, present… Continue reading J W Dunne and the infinite regress

Rate this:

Qualia – maybe not such a hard problem after all?

Let’s now tackle head-on the issue of “qualia” – those subjective conscious experiences such as the redness of an apple or the pain of a headache, sometimes referred to as “raw feel”. The undeniable reality of qualia, coupled with their “ineffability”, has been taken to be a fundamental problem for materialist explanations of consciousness such… Continue reading Qualia – maybe not such a hard problem after all?

Rate this:

Overview of the Model Theory in action

I’m looking out of the window and I’m conscious of the street outside and I’m also conscious of the fact that I’m looking at the street as well as lots of other things going on outside me and inside me. Here’s what I think is happening. Inside my head, running on my brain, is a… Continue reading Overview of the Model Theory in action

Rate this:

The Model Theory of Consciousness

OK, let’s jump straight in. Inside each person’s head is a model of everything outside. This model of the universe “runs” in the physical brain, in the same way that a software program runs on a computer’s hardware. Now here’s the crucial bit: obviously, the model contains within itself a model of the person to… Continue reading The Model Theory of Consciousness