Spatial Logic Does logic have a real essence, and what might it be? And what exactly is logic? These are not easy questions; they invite us to dig deep. First, what is real essence? The paradigms are material substances and animal species: gold and tigers being the favorite examples. I won’t rehash all this; I […]
Logic and Space There is a gleam in the eye of this metaphysician, or a glimmer of a gleam. Might logic be derivable from space? Then we would have a metaphysics based solely on space (assuming time can be regarded as a dimension of space).[1] By “logic” I don’t just mean the logical systems studied […]
On What It’s Like It has become orthodox to state the mind-body problem using the locution “what it’s like”. Consciousness is defined as there being something it’s like. Pain is conscious because there is something it’s like to be in pain (it feels a certain way). I will argue that this is neither necessary nor […]
Reduction Redux I have been too harsh on reductionism; it really isn’t such a bad thing, correctly understood. It all depends on the kind of reduction. Materialist reduction has given it a bad name, because it is just not plausible (as typically formulated anyway). The OED defines “reduce” as “make or become smaller or less […]
Hi Colin: Happy New Year! As you know, I’m a fan of your blogs, save them all. Two I find especially relevant for the Landscape of Consciousness, as they are original and insightful, and encourage new ways of thinking. I took each of the blogs and framed them in Landscape style, using your words as […]
Explore Berggruen Prize Essays Theories Maps Implications Landscape Explore Ask AI Home / Materialism / Phylogenetic/Evolutionary / McGinn’s Living Consciousness McGinn’s Living Consciousness Elementary consciousness does not exist in all things, but it does exist in all organic things. The mind is confined to animate things. There are traces of it in all living tissue, […]
Explore Berggruen Prize Essays Theories Maps Implications Landscape Explore Ask AI Home / Materialism / Relational / McGinn’s Brain Perception McGinn’s Brain Perception Consciousness is perceiving your own brain. This isn’t because all consciousness is a brain state; it’s because all consciousness is brain perception. Consciousness is brain awareness—awareness of the brain. All consciousness […]
A (Really) Brief History of Knowledge This is a big subject—a long story—but I will keep it short, brevity being the soul of wisdom. We all know those books about the history of this or that area of human knowledge: physics, astronomy, mathematics, psychology (not so much biology). They are quite engaging, partly because they […]
