On Matter Matter is very versatile stuff. And it is capable of amazing feats: it excludes other matter from its place; it exerts gravitational force; it can condense into black holes; it can be extremely hot or extremely cold; it can be positively or negatively charged; it can emit radiation; it can cause massive explosions; […]
Questions About Consciousness and the Brain I think it would be a good idea to investigate relations between consciousness and the brain that are not usually investigated. I don’t say these investigations are feasible, now or in the future, but the idea of them is worth pondering; they reveal how little we really know about […]
My Left Arm Apparently, I have done the three things most likely to damage my right arm: drumming, kayaking, and tennis. All involve repetitive motions with the hand held high, and I have done a lot of each. In addition, my neck surgery caused some nerve damage to my right arm. My left arm, however, […]
Body Parts Is the mind part of the body? I have not seen this question discussed before; it raises some ticklish questions.[1] I am not asking whether the mind is the brain—that question is very familiar; I am asking whether the mind is part of the body even if it is immaterial. That is, I […]
Two Reviews Kerry McKenzie’s laughable, ignorant, foolish review of Colin McGinn’s Basic Structures of Reality (2011) could only have been published by Mind because she is a woman of junior rank. She clearly had never read the book she was reviewing, given how wide of the mark her observations are. She is completely out […]
Metaphysical Taxonomy What are the most fundamental kinds of things in nature? What are the ultimate natural kinds? A glance at the history of human thought reveals three recurring suggestions: mathematical, material, and mental—the three M’s. Some thinkers have picked one category as basic: Pythagoras picked mathematics, Hobbes picked matter, Berkeley picked mind—along with countless […]
How Old Am I? Today I am 74 years old. But am I? Is it that simple? Maybe the referent of my “I” is younger, if new selves grow during a single life, or possibly a little older if we go back to the womb (that’s when I started aging). How old is my body, […]
Is Immaterialism the True Materialism? I will argue for a position that may strike readers as willfully paradoxical—that immaterialism is closer to the spirit of materialism than materialism is. That is, what is officially called “materialism” violates the essence of what is distinctive about the philosophical position so named, and that the doctrine called “immaterialism” […]
On Not Knowing What it is Like We have picked up the habit of saying that we don’t know what it is like to be a bat, and this feeds into skepticism about materialism.[1] But we don’t stop and ask what kind of ignorance this is—about the nature or analysis of the type of knowledge […]
I’m interested to see that Poland has suddenly entered the rankings on this website at number 2, following the USA at number 1 and then the UK. I wonder whether any Polish visitors would care to tell me why–I’m curious.