Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, 49069 Osnabrück, Germany; School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia. Electronic address: smaleeh@uos.de.
3 papers in the library · 11 citations · publishing 2014-2021
The dynamic framework of mind wandering, which views it as a spontaneous thought phenomenon, is revised by adding the concept of mindful meta-awareness. This integration changes the framework in two key ways: meta-awareness alters how thoughts relate to constraints, so the original criteria for mind wandering no longer apply, and lucid dreaming can be seen as unguided thought that still relies on deliberate constraints. The modified framework may aid in treating mental disorders involving altered spontaneous thought, such as depression and nightmares.
Pragmatic information, as interpreted by Roederer, is a concept that treats information and information processing as exclusive attributes of biological systems tied to the definition of life itself. This paper argues that this notion can serve as a unifying concept for a future science of information. The author applies pragmatic information to four areas: proposing an ontology for quantum mechanics based on a modified Bohmian interpretation that meets all conditions of pragmatic information; distinguishing natural living systems from artifacts and non-living systems, thereby arguing against Strong Artificial Intelligence; updating Chalmers's Double-aspect Theory of Information to better explain its physical aspect; and offering a new account of causation that differentiates biological causation from causation in the abiotic natural world.
This paper presents three arguments against Nannini's eliminativist view that consciousness and the Self are illusions. First, the same premises Nannini uses for eliminativism can instead support naturalistic dualism, where phenomenal consciousness irreducibly emerges from physical processes via psychophysical laws. Second, the paper challenges Nannini's claim that science's image should always override the manifest image, using a comparison between Copenhagen and Bohmian interpretations of quantum mechanics to show scientific images can conflict. Third, identifying consciousness as an illusion fails to address the hard problem, because illusions themselves are phenomenal experiences requiring explanation.