Fodor is undoubtedly asking the right question: “Why did God ― or natural selection ― make consciousness?” Yet, I would suggest the reason he finds it all so baffling is that he is starting off with completely the wrong premise. For he has…

But you do not need to understand what I have just said to get the message. Creating something that gives the illusion of having weird and wonderful properties need be no great shakes, certainly much easier than creating something that act…

A philosophical term of art may come in useful here. When people perceive, think, believe, and so on, these mental states are called “intentional states”, and whatever it is the particular state is about ― the percept, thought, belief ― is…

Consider what you might want to explain about the experience of looking at this object. Since it is at first sight so surprising and impressive, any one of us who did not know what was going on here might very well innocently ask the (bad)…

「知覚はどこにあるか」と題して書いてきた考へ方を元に、Nicolas Humphrey 氏が意識の問題にどう接近するかについて書いた文章"Getting the Measure of Consciousness"を批判的に読んでみよう。Nicholas Humphery 氏については、"Seeing red"といふ本の感想…

茂木健一郎氏が、今日の連続ツイートで「自由意思が存在しないという、世界観」について論じてゐる。中国や韓国とのつきあひにおいて相手に過剰な期待をしてはならない、といふ論旨には同意するのだが、次のやうな言ひ方には違和感を覚える。 国としての中国…