Tags / 7 quotes from 2 sources
#biological-naturalism
Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart)
Chalmers's third way on consciousness
third way proposed by David Chalmers, which is somewhat between the ideas of the functionalist and biological theorists. Chalmers proposes that consciousness is itself a fundamental property of the universe—just like
Biological versus functionalist views of consciousness
Without going into the mathematical details here, Maguire shows that if we do in fact have completely integrated experiences, this form of information integration cannot be modeled computationally. Both the global workspace theory and the integrated information theory can in…
Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle)
Biological naturalism
Suppose an animal gets a shortage of water in its system. The shortage of water will cause “saline imbalances” in the system, because the ratio of salt to water is excessive in favor of salt. This triggers certain activities in the kidneys. The kidneys secrete rennin, and the…
Consciousness as a system-level biological feature
The worst mistake is to suppose that the common-sense distinction between mental states naïvely construed and physical states naïvely construed is an expression of some deep metaphysical distinction. On the view that I am presenting, it is not. Consciousness is a system-level…
The mental qua mental is physical qua physical
This is one of the most important messages of this book. Once you revise the traditional categories to fit the facts, there is no problem in recognizing that the mental qua mental is physical qua physical. You have to revise the traditional Cartesian definitions of both…
Consciousness and neurons, solidity and pistons
Think of it this way: roughly speaking, consciousness is to neurons as the solidity of the piston is to the metal molecules. Both consciousness and solidity function causally. But neither is “over and above” the systems of which they are a part.
Demystifying intentionality through biology
We are speaking, as we did about consciousness, of a certain set of biological capacities of the mind. And it is best to start with the biological capacities that are primitive—for instance, hunger, thirst, the sex drive, perception, and intentional action. In the last chapter…