Pete Mandik Neural Accomplishment of Objectivity

Points of View from the Brain's Eye View: Subjectivity and Neural Representation

Conscious experiences are supposed by many to be subjective in the sense of being perspectival or from a point-of-view (see, for example Nagel 1974, 1986 and Tye 1995). Allegedly, the subjectivity of consciousness is beyond the grasp of science, which is objective (Nagel 1986). If you wanted a scientific understanding of consciousness, how would you solve the problem of subjectivity? One strate...

Neurophilosophical Foundations

Pete Mandik : This is Philosophy of Mind :

Pete Mandik’s This is Philosophy of Mind is the latest addition to the ‘‘introduction to the philosophy of mind textbook’’ literature. It is a welcome addition, as Mandik offers readers an encompassing, up-to-date and engagingly written textbook. The objective of This is Philosophy of Mind is to communicate to a wider audience the fascinating and challenging ideas discussed in contemporary phil...

Evolving artificial minds and brains

We explicate representational content by addressing how representations that explain intelligent behavior might be acquired through processes of Darwinian evolution. We present the results of computer simulations of evolved neural network controllers and discuss the similarity of the simulations to real-world examples of neural network control of animal behavior. We argue that focusing on the s...

Varieties of Representation in Evolved and Embodied Neural Networks

In this paper I discuss one of the key issues in the philosophy of neuroscience: neurosemantics. The project of neurosemantics involves explaining what it means for states of neurons and neural systems to have representational contents. Neurosemantics thus involves issues of common concern between the philosophy of neuroscience and philosophy of mind. I discuss a problem that arises for account...