The Multiple Realization Book

The Multiple Realization Book PDF

Author: Thomas W. Polger

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0198732899

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Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro provide a full investigation of multiple realisation - the idea that minds can be realised in ways other than the human brain. They cast doubt on the hypothesis and give an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, and in chemistry, biology, and related fields.

The Multiple Realization Book

The Multiple Realization Book PDF

Author: Thomas W. Polger

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-09-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0191085499

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Since Hilary Putnam offered multiple realization as an empirical hypothesis in the 1960s, philosophical consensus has turned against the idea that mental processes could be identified with brain processes, and multiple realization has become the keystone of the 'antireductive consensus' across philosophy of science broadly. Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first book-length investigation of multiple realization. Their analysis of multiple realization serves as a starting point to a series of philosophically sophisticated and empirically informed arguments that cast doubt on the generality of multiple realization in the cognitive sciences. In the course of making their case, they respond to classic defenses of multiple realization that Jerry Fodor, Ned Block, and other prominent philosophers of psychology have offered. Polger and Shapiro conclude that the identity theory, once left for dead, remains a viable theory of mind—one that, when suitably framed, enjoys the benefits typically thought to accrue only to theories of mind that presuppose the truth of multiple realization. As Polger and Shapiro see matters, mind-brain identities have played an important role in the growth and achievements of the cognitive sciences, and they see little prospect—or need—for multiple realization in an empirically-based theory of mind. This leads Polger and Shapiro to offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, as well as in chemistry, biology, and other non-basic sciences.

A Middle Way

A Middle Way PDF

Author: Robert W. Batterman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 0197568610

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Autonomy -- Hydrodynamics -- Brownian motion -- From Brownian motion to bending beams -- An engineering approach -- The right variables and natural kinds.

Materialist Phenomenology

Materialist Phenomenology PDF

Author: Manuel DeLanda

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-09-23

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1350263974

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Bringing together phenomenology and materialism, two perspectives seemingly at odds with each other, leading international theorist, Manuel DeLanda, has created an entirely new theory of visual perception. Engaging the scientific (biology, ecological psychology, neuroscience and robotics), the philosophical (idea of 'the embodied mind') and the mathematical (dynamic systems theory) to form a synthesis of how to see in the 21st century. A transdisciplinary and rigorous analysis of how vision shapes what matters.

Evil and Many Worlds

Evil and Many Worlds PDF

Author: William Hunt

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1793634300

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In Evil and Many Worlds: A Free-Will Theodicy, William Hunt presents a unique approach to explaining how God and evil can coexist despite the abundance of moral and natural evils blighting our world, which imply that an omnibenevolent God is unlikely to exist. This theodicy is based upon Huw Everett III's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, whereby reality is not what it intuitively seems; instead, it is a multiverse comprising a vast number of universes, and we simultaneously exist in many of them. This multiplicity of existence results in a balance of moral good and evil across the multiverse, and through this, the expression of free will—an attribute valued by both persons and God— flourishes. The theodicy explains the coexistence of God and natural evil through the necessity of an evolutionary process that ensures the emergence of free-willed persons. Notwithstanding this universal perspective of Creation, a resurrection possibility would mitigate individual suffering resulting from this divine holistic strategy. Hunt examines this possibility in light of the many-worlds interpretation.

Evidence for Reductionist or Anti-Reductionist Approaches of Mental Processing

Evidence for Reductionist or Anti-Reductionist Approaches of Mental Processing PDF

Author: Francesca Strappini

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2024-02-16

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 2832537626

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As scientists or clinicians, we all have an implicit theory about how the mind relates to the nervous system, which infuses our research and practice. This theory entails what has been traditionally known as “the mind-body problem.” Intrinsically connected to the question of potentials and constraints of human and conscious artificial life, it still represents an open and highly debated philosophical and empirical question. The common assumption for many cognitive neuropsychologists and neuropsychiatrists is that by looking at the anatomical brain function or malfunction it is possible to predict the behavioral experience of individuals. This view, often called reductionism, has dominated the research trajectories in neuroscience and psychiatry in the past decades.

Defending the Multiple Realization Argument Against the Identity Theory

Defending the Multiple Realization Argument Against the Identity Theory PDF

Author: David Barrett

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 9781267475060

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A classic argument in the philosophy of mind is that the identity theory is false because mental state types are multiply realized in brain state types. In this dissertation I provide a detailed elaboration of the argument and a defense of it against a few of its prominent contemporary critics. Finally I offer empirical evidence from inter-species differences in humans and monkeys, and also from a case of extensive neural plasticity, which shows that mental state types are multiply realized in brain state types.

The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind

The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind PDF

Author: Mark Sprevak

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 737

ISBN-13: 1317286715

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Computational approaches dominate contemporary cognitive science, promising a unified, scientific explanation of how the mind works. However, computational approaches raise major philosophical and scientific questions. In what sense is the mind computational? How do computational approaches explain perception, learning, and decision making? What kinds of challenges should computational approaches overcome to advance our understanding of mind, brain, and behaviour? The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind is an outstanding overview and exploration of these issues and the first philosophical collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by an international team of contributors from different disciplines, the Handbook is organised into four parts: History and future prospects of computational approaches Types of computational approach Foundations and challenges of computational approaches Applications to specific parts of psychology. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of science, The Routledge Handbook of the Computational Mind will also be of interest to those studying computational models in related subjects such as psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.

The Adaptable Mind

The Adaptable Mind PDF

Author: John Zerilli

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0190067888

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"What conception of mental architecture can survive the evidence of neuroplasticity and neural reuse in the human brain? In particular, what sorts of modules are compatible with this evidence? This book shows how developmental and adult neuroplasticity, as well as evidence of pervasive neural reuse, forces a revision to the standard conceptions of modularity and spells the end of a hardwired and dedicated language module. It argues from principles of both neural reuse and neural redundancy that language is facilitated by a composite of modules (or module-like entities), few if any of which are likely to be linguistically special, and that neuroplasticity provides evidence that (in key respects and to an appreciable extent) few if any of them ought to be considered developmentally robust, though their development does seem to be constrained by features intrinsic to particular regions of cortex (manifesting as domain-specific predispositions or acquisition biases). In the course of doing so, the book articulates a schematically and neurobiologically precise framework for understanding modules and their supramodular interactions"--

The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness

The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness PDF

Author: Susan Schneider

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-03-16

Total Pages: 848

ISBN-13: 1119002206

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Updated and revised, the highly-anticipated second edition of The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness offers a collection of readings that together represent the most thorough and comprehensive survey of the nature of consciousness available today. Features updates to scientific chapters reflecting the latest research in the field Includes 18 new theoretical, empirical, and methodological chapters covering integrated information theory, renewed interest in panpsychism, and more Covers a wide array of topics that include the origins and extent of consciousness, various consciousness experiences such as meditation and drug-induced states, and the neuroscience of consciousness Presents 54 peer-reviewed chapters written by leading experts in the study of consciousness, from across a variety of academic disciplines