About

These pages are devoted to short discussions of some of the major thinkers and theories about consciousness. The selection of topics is idiosyncratic and there are still some regrettable omissions. The pieces are meant to be brief and lively,and written from a distinct point of view (sometimes more than one point of view), and this naturally makes it difficult at times to do full justice to the views or the people under consideration. But no-one is mentioned here who I do not sincerely respect and admire, however much I may think they are mistaken on some points. Clearly the only way to get a full understanding of what someone is saying is to read their own books or papers, a course I heartily recommend.

One possible source of confusion is that some of the discussions here are presented as dialogues between two different characters. One of these, whom I think of as ‘Blandula’, after the Emperor Hadrian’s verse* addressed to his own soul, is represented by a sort of cherub, and is suspicious of reductive and materialist ideas: the other, (‘Bitbucket’, represented by an abacus) takes the opposite view. I hope this helps both sides to benefit from vigorous advocacy, but the two characters are merely figments of my imagination and I cannot supply email addresses for either of them.

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I hope, in any case, that you find something here interesting or amusing. Criticisms, suggestions, and queries about the site will be attended to as quickly as my amateurism, restricted intelligence, incompetence, sloth, and generally bad attitude to work and customer service permit.

*This is the poem: it’s carved on Hadrian’s tomb.

Animula vagula blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos.

This is my translation – a bit free, obviously..

My little pale and wandering soul
My body’s guest and friend,
Wherever will you go to now,
When we have reached the end?
So white and clenched now you’re outside,
No covering for you;
No body now to share some fun
The way we used to do.

32 thoughts on “About

  1. Peter,
    What a charming translation! Makes me smile. Thank you.
    As a writer, I couldn’t resist tweaking it {occupational hazard~!} before reposting it.
    I’ve linked to RSS, but wish you had a Facebook page!
    Anyway, here’s my version, for what it’s worth:
    My little wandering soul
    My body’s guest and friend,
    However will you go on now,
    That we have reached the end?
    So pale and naked on your own
    No covering for you,
    No body now to share some fun
    The way we used to do.

    I love your last lines best. 🙂

  2. Hi there guys,
    An amazing website that you have here. I will be sharing with some of my intellectual friends and having many long discussions with so much food for thought.
    I don’t know how I stumbled across this page and I am so happy that I have. Maybe in future add a forum to this site so that people can discuss new threads and topics and share their own interpretation/opinions as thats what we are all so good at aren’t we. I am going to have to put a lot of head miles into some of these topics as some make sense and some need a little more research.
    Personally I would suggest against Facebook as once you post your information on their website somehow they maintain that everything that you post on their belongs to them and this can cause some drama’s for certain individuals and organisations.
    Stay hidden away like an old country town that isn’t on the major Highway and which only the people willing to do a little investigation and searching end up finding the hidden treasure you have to offer …
    That’s my 2 cents… Keep posting new and interesting information

    Regards

    Hectic_Huzee

  3. Re: bluebrain project. Computers do what they do because they are jealously protected from noise, chaos, quantum oddities, and the like, the brute facts of physical existence. In a little realm something enough like determinism rules, and algorithms may safely graze. But brains swim naked with those brute facts, which are perforce part of cogitation. How fatuous the Bluebrain project. A simulated brain puts me in mind of… a clockwork orange.

  4. Let me know if you need a volunteer for consciousness transferal. I’ve always thought I should have been born a girl. And if the technology exists to make that dream a reality: I will happily agree to be your lab rat. Don’t hesitate to Email me and let me know when you’re ready to begin.

  5. Pingback: I exist, but what is I « What is I

  6. Dear Peter,

    I am writing from the Institute of Art and Ideas in Britain which organises an annual festival of ideas where we film every debate and talk. I just came across your website, consciousentities.com, and thought that you might be interested in a video we’ve released recently.

    Entitled “The Minds Eye: Philosophy of Consciousness and Soul”, it’s a debate discussing whether or not the idea of the soul has made a comeback. Can science explain consciousness without the presence of a soul? Participants include philosopher Galen Strawson, evolutionary psychologist Nicholas Humphrey and award winning documentary maker David Malone.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdtB94DgI7I

    I thought this debate might appeal to you and your readers, and if you think it does it would be fantastic if you could share it with them.

    Best regards,

    Thomas Cheley

  7. Pingback: Preserving the Self for Later Emulation: What Brain Features Do We Need? – Ever Smarter World

  8. Dear Peter

    I’ve been following your blog for many years and visit it every couple of days. I always get a giddy little thrill when you’ve posted a new article. I’ve been late for work more than once as a result of checking too early in the day.

    I’ve only a fascination with consciousness and no relevant education. Your extraordinary ability to satisfy both sciolist and scholar* is all that has stopped my fascination dwindling to irritation and indifference.

    I trust that is sufficient sycophantic fawning to allow me to request a big favour: please write a book aimed at the casual enquirer called –

    ‘The State We’re In: Blah Blah Blah Consciousness’

    – Obviously the second half of the title needs some work.

    I note your point above about sloth etc but you’ve already broken the back of the project with your work on this site it just needs to be restructured and largely rewritten (most probably).

    Please let me know when its done and keep is simple and clear. I tried to read Steven Pinker’s ‘How the Mind Works’ and it made me cry.

    – Also when you have written the book please get it made into a TV series ideally fronted by Stephen Fry, and yourself of course.

    Thank you in advance

    Simon
    (not my real name in case my boss reads this post, unlikely but better safe than sorry)

    * My assumption you satisfy the scholar is based on impenetrable intellectualism of the majority of the comments. They could of course all be delusional dilettantes, in which case please let me know and I will stop even trying to understand them. Except, relative newcomer, Philosopher Eric: he seems sweet and makes me laugh.

  9. Thanks indeed, ‘Simon’!

    I have had it in mind for a while to do a book, either a collection of revised pieces from here – or just a personal view. I was going to call it ‘Consciousness – one and a half answers to three and a half questions’ – I thought it would be a pleasant contrast to the hyperbolic tone of some of the book titles in the field. But I’m not so sure now.

    Give me a year and we’ll see!

  10. Dear Peter

    Thank you for your swift response.

    I do hope you write your book and hope you consider my title for 2 reasons.

    Firstly, and most importantly, vanity on my part: I’d really like an acknowledgement. I have already received an acknowledgement in a published work but my name was misspelt. Coincidentally it was a book about non-philosophical zombies. I told the author all about philosophical zombies hoping they would make an appearance in the sequel. He asked me if there was anyway I could tell they hadn’t appeared in the first book. I thought this showed a remarkably grasp of the issues, especially as the first book was written in the first person.

    Secondly, I worry that your title may put of the casual enquirer who hasn’t taken the trouble to read your blog. They may form the opinion that if you can’t be bothered to even finish all the questions and have fallen woefully short with the answers why should they bother reading it (or at least put of their purchase until the 2nd volume has been published.

    Also, on re-reading my original comment I realize my final points about the commentators (commentors?, commentists? commentati?) appear graceless, sneeringly anti-intellectual and slightly patronizing to Philosopher Eric. This wasn’t my intention. They were meant to be a humourous reflection on the breadth of your readership, with me as the butt of the joke. I don’t feel I pulled this off and apologize if any offence was caused.

    Regards

    ‘Simon’

    I like your addition of quotation marks. I will use them always now.

  11. Peter may have been happy to hear from you ‘Simon,’ but I am quite overjoyed! Am I indeed sweet? My wife did not think so this morning as she realized that I had not taken her walk as an opportunity to get her some “Mothers Day stuff” (and also observed my similarities to the central void of the posterior, at which time I certainly did comply!). But maybe this is indeed her point — that I devote too much of my “sweetness” to my own projects. It may have only taken a decade or so for her to fully realize what else she purchased with her green card, and we’ve been married for quite some time now. But if I were ever to become “sweet,” I suspect that it would be one of those “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?!!” scenarios.

    I am quite happy to have stumbled upon this little nugget, and in a reasonably non-tardy fashion. One of my greatest fears here is that I am hurting Peter’s web site. I suppose that people generally comment on these things with the hope of positive “theory of mind” sensations, like “respect.” But if I happen to be depriving many of such an opportunity, as I do suspect, then I should most certainly have detrimental effects upon his viewership. You, however, make me wonder if he also has a significant audience that simply does not comment on his posts. This is certainly my hope! Also I’ve noticed that Peter has reinstituted my “dorky dudeness” comment from his “Experimental Identities” post, which I suppose is a good sign, though I obviously might still be harming his site.

    I once looked on a google site assessment thing that said Peter’s site merits 5 out of 10, with Scott Bakker and Derek Bowden the same, while I think there was a standard site for news that ranked a 7. (My own site had no figure, though at the moment I can assure you that a “ha ha!” classification is quite certain.) But what does a 5 out of 10 effectively mean? In practice, how many people might be considering what I say here? Of course Peter should have a reasonable grasp of this, as well as know the extent to which I’ve been helping/hurting his site, but this is all his domain rather than mine. Regardless it is certainly good to hear from you ‘Simon,’ as you do bring me hope.

    P.S. simply because I can: It has been quite a lovely day for us over here, but my wife was again disturbed when I told her that the name of her new “Epicurious” cooking magazine was inspired by the same ideology associated with her, as she said, “arrogant hedonist husband.”

  12. I have been reading this blog eagerly for a number of years, but never made any attempt to contact you. I just wanted you to know that I am a great admirer of the site. There is nothing else out there that is even close in terms of its scope, depth & timeliness. So this is merely a note of appreciation, admiration and a few kilos of envy. I don’t know how you do it.

  13. I’ve just found this super website. A great resource – thank you!

    I have a quest; an enquiry that I’m working on defining. I have to come at it from various angles at the moment. It needs layers building first to get to the nature of the question. The heart of the matter arises from pursuing the answers to these tangential points. Here goes a try…

    An angle that approaches it from one direction might start with a thought experiment; I believe Dennett used similar but for a different end:

    (1) I’m in the Star Trek transporter. The pattern buffer logs all my information. This beams me down to a planet, by recreating an exact ‘me’. But the ‘original’ is not deleted. What is ‘my’ subjective experience?

    If unchanged, then, as the original and duplicate are, by definition, indistinguishable from their outside. What quality or factor, would grant just the original ‘me’ a persisting host of the subjectivity ‘I’ have and the new ‘me’ a new subjectivity to which ‘I’ don’t have access?

    (2) Another angle: (a) I’m in a closed room with nine other people. We’re all conscious. We’re each ‘me’ and ‘I’ from our individual perspective. We all experience qualia, separately and subjectively. But what quality or element bestows the subjectivity I know on me? Why is it that I regard the other nine people rather than being one of the other nine people regarded by ‘someone else’? What quality or element bestows the subjectivity I have amidst multiple subjectivities? Is this an additional variable, feature, component, quality, since all have consciousness and ‘me’-ness in common? (b) What feature is it that only I have, such that there is only 1 in 10 possible combinations of 9 deaths in the room that would appear to preserve ‘my’ subjectivity?

    (3) What is it that hosts the subjectiveness of this consciousness, not another? If it’s a physical body and brain, why is it THIS physical body and brain that I am in? Why do I look through these eyes? Why this me not another me?

    If we borrow the anthropic stance, it’s always ‘me’. But why this me, at this time and place (that does not have access to other ‘me’s). What is the essence of the greater subjectiveness of one particular ‘me’ amongst all subjective ‘me’s?

    …any thoughts?

  14. Briefly, the essential point is surely about personal identity and what we are. We’re not, in fact, data structures or sets of information, we are specific physical entities. We don’t subsist, in the way abstract entities do, we exist; we have haecceity, we participate in the causal matrix that constitutes reality. We’re particular.

    So even a perfect copy is not us; it’s a perfect copy (I strongly doubt whether Star Trek scanners are possible in principle, too, but that’s a separate point).

    Why do I have this haecceity, this ‘thisness’ that makes me me and not anyone else? That’s a very deep metaphysical question, but a superficial answer is that
    that’s what the time-bound, causal world is all about. Why is there a causal, time-bound world? It seems to be necessary, not in logic, but in terms of an anterior metaphysical system which is incapable of formal description.

    That all needs to be greatly expanded to even make sense properly, but I hope it sounds like the right kind of answer might be in there somewhere. I have wibbled about these issues many times here – see ‘Why am I me’, ‘Scanners’, ‘…but something is necessary’ etc. I think I actually understand this a little better now than when I wrote those pieces, and I will try to write something that makes more sense before too long.

    I don’t suppose that’s any help.

  15. Peter – thank you for your thoughts and pointers to the three articles. I can’t seem to find the ‘scanners’ one but enjoyed the others.

    A bit more struggling:

    (1) By definition, strictly and absolutely: all quarks and leptons are indistinguishable from ‘others’ of their kind. There are even some who imagine that all of each and indeed both may be the ‘same’ (John Wheeler’s call to Feynman, ‘one electron universe’ principle). Surely, this demands that there can be only quiddity, not haecceity with matter.

    (2) If we are composed of such matter, how can we then have haecceity? Might haecceity arise from the arrangement or pattern of matter? Even then, it would require that there is a quality in space which acts as local ‘axes’ – or allows relative positioning. How can this grant haecceity when absolute space is arbitrary and is without haecceity.

    (3) The step from quiddity to haecceity seems to depend on a frame of reference. Surely, all frames of reference have quiddity, but what then gives one of these frames of reference haecceity?

    I agree, ultimately, I want to take abstract thinking back to emotional reality as a human being, feel more comfortable about living, loss and dying and satisfy raging curiosity.

    The causal time-bound world might provide the ‘axes’ of a substrate on which we exist. This also might introduce ‘first’ haecceity to our universe. Once this precedent has been set, it seems others quiddities might become haecceities.

    Does haecceity have hypokeimenon? It appears to persist over time (taking our very ‘folk’ view of flowing time). Can it flow laterally between people?

    Can haecceity be defined using mathematical formalism?

  16. It seems to be necessary, not in logic, but in terms of an anterior metaphysical system which is incapable of formal description

    Yes, please, write something soon.

    Emergent C:

    Hypokeimenon !! The holy grail… the substance that will unify all wisdoms and metawisdoms.. Some forms of hinduism consider that reality is just the different vibrations of some fundamental substrate… they started string theory a few centuries ago… maybe our haecceity is just a personal golden code (orthonormal random binay chains-PRN)to modulate this fundamental carrier, so each conscious entity has its own code (like an IP address). These computationalists are going to be right…. ha ha no way.

  17. My emotional self agrees: computationalism, at least classical computation, is too reductive. Too materialist, though quantum material might play host and redefine the material-dualist dichotomy.

    Golden codes: numbers might all be different but why the assignment of one specific number to “me”? It feels like the hacceity problem remains.

    In a configuration manifold of permissible states, our specific subjectivity seems like it’s the origin much like fixing a point in Tait’s Inertial Clock. All moves relative to “me”. What allows the possession of this origin amongst many origins?

    How can this be resolved? Can there be a cotangential parameter to each point in the configuration manifold of all states which adds the further degree of freedom of that point being the point of hacceity amongst all other states. Is this just adding an axis to the MW idea?

  18. My first book about consciousness was just published and I would love your help in spreading the good word. If you are interested in receiving a free copy, please provide me with your mailing address and I will send you Consciousness Archaeology right away. Many thanks to you my friend….Peace and Love!

    Freeman

  19. You mention Dale Carnegie and Jeffrey Archer among your literary influences, Maximus, so I suspect it’s not for me…

  20. @Maximus: Sure, send a copy to sajpappstore(at)gmail.com. Can’t be any worse than brain-upload enthusiasts, Graziano’s idea that puppets are conscious entities, or Tegmark’s idea that Everything is really just maths and we’re all math-elementals.

  21. Genuinely no matter if someone doesn’t understand then its up to other visitors that they will help, so here it takes place.

  22. Hi Peter,

    My name is Anuj Agarwal. I’m Founder of Feedspot.

    I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Conscious Entities has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 75 Consciousness Blogs on the web.

    http://blog.feedspot.com/consciousness_blogs/

    I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world. This is the most comprehensive list of Top 75 Consciousness Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

    Also, you have the honor of displaying the badge on your blog.

    Best,
    Anuj

  23. ch as `connection’ and `boundary’.
    This paper explores an alternative to these approaches, RCC theory, which takes extended
    spaces (`regions’) as fundamental; points, if used at all, are dened in terms of regions. A
    single relation, C(x; y) (read `Region x connects with region y’) is axiomatised as the basis of
    the topological part of RCC theory. Regions may be considered as spatial, temporal, or spatiotemporal, although in any particular model all regions have the same dimensionality. RCC
    theory has deep roots in the philosophical logic literature. Advocacy of region-based rather
    than point-based spatial and temporal representation has links with a broader opposition
    to the view that set theory and predicate logic provide an adequate basis for the formal
    representation of the world.
    The paper presents and discusses the set of axioms currently constituting the topolog1
    The name `RCC’ was invented only recently; it is not used in many of our earlier papers.
    2
    ical part of RCC theory, showing that a considerable range of topological concepts can be
    reconstructed from the single primitive C (x; y), without `building in’ such concepts as dimensionality and boundaries, or using the (point-based) concept of mappings between spaces,
    but also that reconstructing such concepts from C is by no means simple. RCC theory and
    mathematical topology are compared as approaches to describing and reasoning about the
    topological properties and relations of entities which can be embedded in a Euclidean space
    of three or fewer dimensions. RCC’s limitations are examined along with its advantages; this
    paper is aimed at exploring an alternative to conventional topology rather than advocating
    it.
    The paper also covers the idea of `conceptual neighbourhoods’: RCC theory allows the
    denition of a set of eight `base relations’, one and only one of which must hold between a
    pair of regions. Under certain assumptions, some sets of these base relations form `conceptual neighbourhoods’: a smooth transition is possible from any one of the set to any other,
    without passing through any base relation outside the neighbourhood. The usefulness of conceptual neighbourhoods in representing and reasoning about change is described, and some of
    their implications are explored. Finally, some existing and potential applications are brie
    y
    discussed.
    2 Point-Set and Algebraic Topology
    Topology as developed by mathematicians over the last century has shown the tendency,
    common to much of mathematics, towards increasing abstraction and generality; much of
    it is thus of little or no obvious relevance to those attempting to formalise commonsense
    spatial reasoning. Nevertheless, those attempting to develop alternatives to the conventional
    mathematical approach should have some understanding of it.
    Mathematical topology is divided into two main branches: general or point-set topology,
    and algebraic topology. Point-set topology, as its name suggests, is closely linked to set theory:
    a `topological space’ can be dened (Armstrong 1979, p.28) simply as a set (the members of
    which are generally called `points’), together with a set of `open’ subsets of that set. The set
    of points may be nite or innite, and if innite, countable (like the integers) or uncountable
    (like the real numbers). A given set S (if it has more than 1 member), can be given dierent
    topologies. In any particular topology on S, the following conditions must be met:
    1 The empty set (signied 😉 and S itself are open.
    2 The intersection of any nite set of open subsets is open.
    3 The union of any set (nite or innite) of open subsets is open

  24. I just stumbled upon the experiments section from a Google / Ecosia search and found it really fascinating. One thing that came to my mind while reading about Libet is that humans are generally pretty bad random generators. So getting a subject to ‘pick a random time’ for action means that this person will turn on some internal randomness circuitry, which may very well be based on neural processes that are totally unconscious. So it makes sense that there’s something to measure before consciousness knows about it: the random trigger circuitry that was delegated the task of firing at some ‘random’ point in time. Of course the outcome is really not random at all, it’ll always be a response to some neural activity and thus to the environment. One could infer that there’s no free will involved in random choices, which I think would be much aligned with the idea of free will anyway.

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