Related papers: Free Will and Advances in Cognitive Science
Many see modern science as having serious defects, intellectual, social, moral. Few see this as having anything to do with the philosophy of science. I argue that many diverse ills of modern science are a consequence of the fact that the…
Causal models and methods have great promise, but their progress has been stalled. Proposals using causality get squeezed between two opposing worldviews. Scientific perfectionism--an insistence on only using "correct" models--slows the…
This is an essay in what might be called ``mathematical metaphysics.'' There is a fundamental duality that run through mathematics and the natural sciences. The duality starts as the logical level; it is represented by the Boolean logic of…
A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified, in connection with growing debate about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the key ideas can be explained…
This article was written in response to a request from an editor of American Vedantist. It is shown that the idea that consciousness is essential to understanding quantum mechanics arises from logical fallacies. This may be welcome news to…
Logical bilateralism challenges traditional concepts of logic by treating assertion and denial as independent yet opposed acts. While initially devised to justify classical logic, its constructive variants show that both acts admit…
The basic question in the long-standing debate about free will (FW) is not whether FW can be demonstrated to exist nor even whether it exists, but instead how to define it scientifically. If FW is not dismissed as an illusion nor identified…
Quantum Mechanics is generally considered to be the ultimate theory capable of explaining the emergence of randomness by virtue of the quantum measurement process. Therefore, Quantum Mechanics can be thought of as God's wonderfully…
Consciousness and quantum mechanics are among the most puzzling phenomena studied in the sciences. Some scholars suggest they are related, though others think this claim commits a "minimization of mystery" fallacy. The aim of this…
Capacity of conscious agents to perform genuine choices among future alternatives is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Determinism that pervades classical physics, however, forbids free will, undermines the foundations of ethics, and…
This essay addresses the implications of integrated information theory (IIT) for free will. IIT is a theory of what consciousness is and what it takes to have it. According to IIT, the presence of consciousness is accounted for by a maximum…
Humans dispose of two intertwined information processing pathways, cognitive information processing via neural firing patterns and diffusive volume control via neuromodulation. The cognitive information processing in the brain is…
Science strives for a detailed understanding of reality even if this differentiation threatens individual synthesis, or the wholeness of psyche. Religion strives to maintain the wholeness of psyche, even if at the expense of a detailed…
The dialogue develops arguments for and against adopting a new world system, info-computationalist naturalism, that is poised to replace the traditional mechanistic world system. We try to figure out what the info-computational paradigm…
Scientific realism is, currently, one of the most well-entrenched background assumptions of some relevant versions of anti-exceptionalism about logic. We argue that this is a sort of sociological contingency rather than a metaphilosophical…
All sciences need and many arts apply mathematics whereas mathematics seems to be independent of all of them, but only based upon logic. This conservative concept, however, needs to be revised because, contrary to Platonic idealism…
Einstein initially objected to the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics - the idea that God is playing at dice. Later he changed his ground, and focussed instead on the point that the Copenhagen Interpretation leads to what Einstein…
This article considers evidence from physical and biological sciences to show machines are deficient compared to biological systems at incorporating intelligence. Machines fall short on two counts: firstly, unlike brains, machines do not…
Are minds subject to laws of physics? Are the laws of physics computable? Are conscious thought processes computable? Currently there is little agreement as to what are the right answers to these questions. Penrose goes one step further and…
In the present study we attempt to incorporate the philosophical dialogue about physical reality into the instructional process of quantum mechanics. Taking into account that both scientific realism and constructivism represent, on the…