Alex Byrne and Skepticism About the External World
I recently read Alex Byrne's paper Skepticism About the Internal World (PDF warning), and in this post I want to focus on the first part of the paper, where he…
Machines and Understanding
This recent blog post by Thomas Dietterich has received much well-deserved attention. And while the title What does it mean for a machine to "understand"? sounds like a philosophical work,…
Infallibility, Inflation, and Explosion
In this very interesting discussion between Richard Brown, Keith Frankish, and Philip Goff, Frankish makes the point that the core of his illusionist view is the denial of a phenomenal…
Richard Brown and Keith Frankish on Illusionism
I'm glad I listened to this discussion between Richard Brown and Keith Frankish on Consciousness Live, as Brown seems to have many of the same questions about illusionism that I…
Is Determinism Compatible with Rationality?
I finished listening to this wide-ranging discussion between Justin Brierley and Alex O'Connor, which I had previously commented on here. Towards the end of the episode, they get into an…
Qualia Taste Test
I found that Keith Frankish's paper Quining Diet Qualia (PDF warning) was very helpful for understanding the Illusionist research program. In the paper, he lays out a few conceptions of…
Kripke and Dualism
I wanted to write a bit about Saul Kripke because I figured there are many people who have encountered him through linguistics and logic, but are unfamiliar with how his…
The Moral Argument
I mentioned recently that I just read Justin Brierley's book on apologetics. In that post, I talked about Lewis's trilemma and how it presents a false choice. I want to…
Conceivability Arguments
I was recently listening to this great discussion on consciousness between Philip Goff and Richard Brown, and when they got to a discussion of conceivability arguments (e.g. zombie conceivability), Goff…
A.I., Common Sense, and Thinking
On the question of "Can computers think?", I've had a few posts focusing on the Chinese Room argument. In a nutshell, it's an argument against strong A.I. and the claim…