Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Topic

David Chalmers

At Mind Matters News: The Philosopher’s Zombie Still Walks and Physics Can’t Explain It

The “zombie” argument does what it is supposed to do: Shows that consciousness, the motivating force in our lives, is not really a material thing. Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Chalmers and Penrose clash over “conscious computers”

Holloway: There are hard, practical reasons why computers cannot understand concepts like “infinity” and “truth” and therefore cannot be conscious. Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Why physicalism is failing as the accepted approach to science

Essentially, panpsychism offers a way for scientists to address human consciousness, as currently understood, without explaining it away as an illusion. It would allow us to say that if Zombie-Jane existed, she would be missing something critical that Jane has (and so does everything else, to some extent). Whether that makes panpsychism a better explanation of reality than idealism or dualism is a separate question. Like all points of view, they have their own issues but the Zombie isn’t one of them. Read More ›

Science writer John Horgan explains how he came to doubt the AI apocalypse

Takehome: Horgan finds that, despite the enormous advances in neuroscience, genetics, cognitive science, and AI, our minds remain “as mysterious as ever.” Read More ›