8 Philosophy of mind – Ryan’s Outline of Philosophy

8.1 Consciousness

8.1.1 Introduction

Consciousness, sentience, self-awareness, sapience
Embodiment
Subconscious
Hume
- bundle theory: A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I.iv, section 6
Freud
Jung
Mach ¹
Putnam
Nagel ²
Phenomenal vs access consciousness
- Ned Block
Searle: a biological process like digestion
Churchland’s
Dennett ³
Chalmers ⁴

¹ Mach (1914).

² Nagel (1974).

³ Dennett (1991).

⁴ Chalmers (1996).

8.1.2 Perception

Is perception veridical?
Descartes
Mark, J.T., Marion, B.B, & Hoffman, D.D. (2010). Natural selection and veridical perceptions. ⁵
Gefter, A. & Hoffman, D.D. (2016). The case against reality. The Atlantic. ⁶

⁵ Mark & Marion (2010).

⁶ Gefter & Hoffman (2016).

See also:

Realism and antirealism in the Outline on scientific realism

8.2 Dualism

8.2.1 Introduction

Mind-body problem
Plato
Descartes
Gödel
Kripke

Figure 8.1: Drawing by René Descartes in *Treatise of Man* (1633), supposing the function of the epiphysis (pineal gland) in transmitting sensory inputs to the immaterial spirit (source: Wikimedia).

Grego, R. (2022). Is Western thought marching towards Eastern Idealism?

8.2.2 Criticism

Gilbert Ryle
- “the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine”
- The Concept of Mind (1949)
Bunge
- Bunge, M. (2010). Mind and Matter: A Philosophical Inquiry. ⁷

⁷ Bunge (2010).

8.3 Physicalism

Materialism
Descartes and Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia
- Tollefsen, D. (1999). Princess Elisabeth and the problem of mind-body interaction. ⁸
Marx
Montero ⁹
Dennett
- Dennett, D.C. (2012). The mystery of David Chalmers. ¹⁰
Churchland’s ¹¹
Nail
Ney
Sean Carroll on QFT and experimental high energy physics ruling out the role of any newphysics in the functioning of the brain.
- https://twitter.com/RyanDavidReece/status/1285682311112122370
- YouTube: Is there free will? | David Eagleman and Lex Fridman

⁸ Tollefsen (1999).

⁹ Montero (1999).

¹⁰ Dennett (2012).

¹¹ MacFarquhar (2014).

Figure 8.2: Ney explains physicalism at the International Summer School in the Philosophy of Physics (2016) (source: my tweet).

See also:

Bracketing human experience in the Outline on the philosophy of physics
Physicalism in the Outline on naturalism
Physicalism in the Outline on the human condition

8.4 Externalism

Distributed cognition
Carney, J. (2020). Thinking avant la lettre: A Review of 4E Cognition. ¹²
John Vervaeke

¹² Carney (2020).

8.5 Panpsychism

Chalmers
Rejection of dualism vs physicalism dichotomy
Harris, A. (2022). The strong assumption.

See also:

Idealism

8.6 Illusionism

Ross, D. (2000). Dennett’s Philosophy: A comprehensive assessment. ¹³
Frankish, K. (2016). Illusionism as a theory of consciousness. ¹⁴
Dennett, D.C. (2016). Illusionism as the obvious default theory of consciousness. ¹⁵
Dennett, D.C. (2023). How, when, and why can we trust our brains? Johns Hopkins Natural Philosophy Forum annual Distinguished Lecture.

¹³ Ross (2000).

¹⁴ Frankish (2016).

¹⁵ Dennett (2016).

8.7 Neuroscience

8.7.1 Theoretical neuroscience

Connectionism
- Fodor, J.A. & Pylyshyn, Z.W. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis. ¹⁶
Information integration
- Tononi, G. (2004). An information integration theory of consciousness. ¹⁷
- Tononi, G. (2010). Information integration: Its relevance to brain function and consciousness. ¹⁸
Active inference
- Free energy principle (FEP)
- Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory? ¹⁹
- Andrews, M. (2021). The math is not the territory: Navigating the free energy principle. ²⁰
Predictive coding

¹⁶ Fodor & Pylyshyn (1988).

¹⁷ Tononi (2004).

¹⁸ Tononi (2010).

¹⁹ Friston (2010).

²⁰ Andrews (2021).

8.7.2 Experimental neuroscience

Lettvin, J.Y., Maturanat, H.R., McCulloch, W.S., & Pitts, W.H. (1959). What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain. ²¹
TODO: Libet experiments
Tononi, G. & Edelman, G.M. (1998). Consciousness and complexity. ²²
Koch, C., Massimini, M., Boly, M., & Tononi, G. (2016). Neural correlates of consciousness: Progress and problems. ²³
Cohen, M.A., Dennett, D.C., & Kanwisher, N. (2016). What is the bandwidth of perceptual experience?. ²⁴
MICrONS Consortium. (2025). Functional connectomics spanning multiple areas of mouse visual cortex. ²⁵

²¹ Lettvin, Maturanat, McCulloch, & Pitts (1959).

²² Tononi & Edelman (1998).

²³ Koch, Massimini, Boly, & Tononi (2016).

²⁴ Cohen, Dennett, & Kanwisher (2016).

²⁵ MICrONS Consortium (2025).

8.7.3 Computational neuroscience

Blue Brain Project
- Markram, H. et al. (2017). Blue Brain team discovers a multi-dimensional universe in brain networks.
- Reimann, M.W. et al. (2017). Cliques of neurons bound into cavities provide a missing link between structure and function. ²⁶
- Markram, H. et al. (2020). New evidence for innate knowledge.
Neuromorphic computing

²⁶ Reimann, M.W. et al. (2017).

Figure 8.3: Kahn, Fritz. (1939). What goes on in our heads when we see a car and say ‘car’.

8.8 Language

8.8.1 Origin of language

Origin of language
Language of thought hypothesis
Fodor, J.A. (1975). The Language of Thought. ²⁷
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis AKA Linguistic relativity
Hurlburt, R.T. (2011). Not everyone conducts inner speech.
Grzankowski, A. (2015). Not all attitudes are propositional. ²⁸
McCarthy, C. (2017). The Kekulé Problem. ²⁹
- “the unconscious is a machine for operating an animal.”
Wolpert, D.H. (2022). A sliver of reality.

²⁷ Fodor (1975).

²⁸ Grzankowski (2015).

²⁹ C. McCarthy (2017).

See also:

Symbolic vs connectionist AI

8.8.2 Universal grammar

Noam Chomsky
- innatism
- Syntactic Structures (1957)
- Kantian?
Criticism
- Peter Norvig
  - Norvig, P. (2011). On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning. ³⁰
  - Liberman, M. (2011). Language Log (blog): Norvig channels Shannon contra Chomsky.

³⁰ Norvig (2011).

8.8.3 Animal cognition

Davidson, D. (1982). Rational animals. ³¹
Clever Hans
Washoe the chimpanzee
Pianalto, M. (2012). Thoughts, propositions, and animals.
McKay, S. (2020). The marvel of language: Knowns, unknowns, and maybes. ³²

³¹ Davidson (1982).

³² McKay (2020).

8.9 Free will

Reflections on Free Will - Daniel Dennett
The Marionette’s Lament - Sam Harris
Caricaturing free will - Pawel Pachniewski
Dennett and Harris try to bridge the gap - Waking Up podcast
Free will is dead, let’s bury it. - Sabine Hossenfelder
Sam Harris: Free Will is an Illusion - Lex Fridman podcast
Judea Pearl on the illusion of free will
Aaronson, S. (2006). Lecture notes: Free will.
Aaronson, S. (2013). The ghost in the quantum Turing machine. ³³

³³ Aaronson (2013).

8.10 Artificial intelligence and mind

8.10.1 Introduction

Strong vs weak, general vs narrow AI
Kurzweil, R. (2012). How to Create a Mind. ³⁴

³⁴ Kurzweil (2012).

Proposal (1955) for the Dartmouth Workshop:

The speeds and memory capacities of present computers may be insufficient to simulate many of the higher functions of the human brain, but the major obstacle is not lack of machine capacity, but our inability to write programs taking full advantage of what we have. ³⁵

³⁵ J. McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester, & Shannon (1955).

See also:

8.10.2 Symbolic vs connectionist AI

TODO

See also:

Language

8.10.3 Criticism

Lucas-Penrose Argument about Gödel’s Theorem - IEP
John Searle - Chinese room argument
Hubert Dreyfus
- Dreyfus, H.L. (1965). Alchemy and artificial intelligence. ³⁶
- Dreyfus, H.L. (1972). What Computers Can’t Do. ³⁷
- Video: Being in the World: A tribute to Hubert Dreyfus.
- Video: Hubert Dreyfus interview - AI, Heidegger, meaning in the modern world.
- Hubert Dreyfus’s views on artificial intelligence
Landgrebe & Smith
- Landgrebe, J. & Smith, B. (2023). Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence Without Fear. ³⁸

³⁶ Dreyfus (1965).

³⁷ Dreyfus (1972).

³⁸ Landgrebe & Smith (2023).

See also:

8.10.4 Counter criticism

Comic by Dennett

8.10.5 Computer vision and mind

Takagi, Y. & Nishimoto, S. (2022). High-resolution image reconstruction with latent diffusion models from human brain activity. ³⁹

³⁹ Takagi & Nishimoto (2022).

8.10.6 Language models and mind

Browning, J. & LeCun, Y. (2022). AI and the limits of language. ⁴⁰
Piantadosi, S.T. (2023). Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language. ⁴¹
Katzir, R. (2023). Why large language models are poor theories of human linguistic cognition: A reply to Piantadosi. ⁴²

⁴⁰ Browning & LeCun (2022).

⁴¹ Piantadosi (2023).

⁴² Katzir (2023).

Experimentallly:

Overall, these results suggest that, beyond the marginal effects of the models’ architectures, the middle—but not the outer—layers of deep language models systematically converge towards brain-like representations. ⁴³

⁴³ Caucheteux & King (2020).

See also:

Word meanings

8.11 My thoughts

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

8.12 Annotated bibliography

8.12.1 Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat?

Nagel (1974)

8.12.1.1 My thoughts

TODO

8.12.2 Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained.

Dennett (1991)

8.12.2.1 My thoughts

TODO

8.12.3 Chalmers, D. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.

Chalmers (1996)

8.12.3.1 My thoughts

TODO

8.12.4 Kurzweil, R. (2012). How to Create a Mind.

Kurzweil (2012)

8.12.4.1 My thoughts

TODO

8.12.5 More articles to do

TODO

8.13 Links and encyclopedia articles

8.13.4 Others

Chalmers’ Guide to the Philosophy of Mind
The empty brain: Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories - Robert Epstein
Symbol grounding problem - scholarpedia

8.13.5 Videos

Dennett, Daniel. (2019). Consciousness, Qualia and the “Hard Problem”.
Dennett, Daniel. (2017). From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds.
Seth, Anil. (2017). The Neuroscience of Consciousness.
Seth, Anil. (2021). Is Reality a Controlled Hallucination?

Aaronson, S. (2013). The ghost in the quantum Turing machine. https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159

Andrews, M. (2021). The math is not the territory: Navigating the free energy principle. Biology & Philosophy, 36, 1–19. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/18974/

Browning, J. & LeCun, Y. (2022). AI and the limits of language. https://www.noemamag.com/ai-and-the-limits-of-language/

Bunge, M. (2010). Mind and Matter: A Philosophical Inquiry. Dordrecht: Springer.

Carney, J. (2020). Thinking avant la lettre: A Review of 4E Cognition. Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 4, 77–90. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7250653/

Caucheteux, C. & King, J. R. (2020). Language processing in brains and deep neural networks: Computational convergence and its limit. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.03.186288

Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford University Press.

Cohen, M. A., Dennett, D. C., & Kanwisher, N. (2016). What is the bandwidth of perceptual experience? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 324–335. https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/112190/nihms769621.pdf

Davidson, D. (1982). Rational animals. Dialectica, 36, 317–327.

Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Hachette Book Group.

———. (2012). The mystery of David Chalmers. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 19, 86–95. https://web.archive.org/web/20230226072833/https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/chalmers.pdf

———. (2016). Illusionism as the obvious default theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, 65–72. https://web.archive.org/web/20210224112608/https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/illusionism.pdf

Dreyfus, H. L. (1965). Alchemy and artificial intelligence. RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3244.html

———. (1972). What Computers Can’t Do. MIT Press.

Fodor, J. A. (1975). The Language of Thought. Harvard University Press.

Fodor, J. A. & Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis. Cognition, 28, 3–71.

Frankish, K. (2016). Illusionism as a theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23, 11–39. https://keithfrankish.github.io/articles/Frankish_Illusionism%20as%20a%20theory%20of%20consciousness_eprint.pdf

Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory? Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 11, 127–138. https://www.uab.edu/medicine/cinl/images/KFriston_FreeEnergy_BrainTheory.pdf

Gefter, A. & Hoffman, D. D. (2016). The case against reality. The Atlantic. April 25, 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

Grzankowski, A. (2015). Not all attitudes are propositional. European Journal of Philosophy, 23, 374–391.

Katzir, R. (2023). Why large language models are poor theories of human linguistic cognition: A reply to Piantadosi. https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/007190

Koch, C., Massimini, M., Boly, M., & Tononi, G. (2016). Neural correlates of consciousness: Progress and problems. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 17, 307–321.

Kurzweil, R. (2012). How to Create a Mind. Penguin Books.

Landgrebe, J. & Smith, B. (2023). Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence Without Fear. Routledge.

Lettvin, J. Y., Maturanat, H. R., McCulloch, W. S., & Pitts, W. H. (1959). What the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain. Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, 47, 1940.

MacFarquhar, L. (2014). Two Heads: A marriage devoted to the mind-body problem. New Yorker. July 21, 2014. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/12/two-heads

Mach, E. (1914). The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical. (C. M. Williams & S. Waterlow, Trans.). Open Court.

Mark, J. T. & Marion, B. (2010). Natural selection and veridical perceptions. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 266, 504–515. http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/PerceptualEvolution.pdf

McCarthy, C. (2017). The Kekulé Problem. Nautilus, 47. https://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem

McCarthy, J., Minsky, M. L., Rochester, N., & Shannon, C. E. (1955). A proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth.pdf

McKay, S. (2020). The marvel of language: Knowns, unknowns, and maybes. Rocky Mountain Review, 74, 49–69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26977687

MICrONS Consortium. (2025). Functional connectomics spanning multiple areas of mouse visual cortex. Nature, 640, 435–447. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08790-w

Montero, B. (1999). The Body Problem. Nous, 33, 183–200.

Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83, 435–450. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf

Norvig, P. (2011). On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning. https://norvig.com/chomsky.html

Piantadosi, S. T. (2023). Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language. https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/007180

Reimann, M.W. et al. (2017). Cliques of neurons bound into cavities provide a missing link between structure and function. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 11. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2017.00048/full

Ross, D. (2000). Dennett’s Philosophy: A comprehensive assessment. MIT Press.

Takagi, Y. & Nishimoto, S. (2022). High-resolution image reconstruction with latent diffusion models from human brain activity. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.18.517004

Tollefsen, D. (1999). Princess Elisabeth and the problem of mind-body interaction. Hypatia, 14, 59–77.

Tononi, G. (2004). An information integration theory of consciousness. BMC Neuroscience, 5, 1–22. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2202-5-42

———. (2010). Information integration: Its relevance to brain function and consciousness. Archives Italiennes de Biolaogie, 148, 299–322. http://www.architalbiol.org/index.php/aib/article/view/148299

Tononi, G. & Edelman, G. M. (1998). Consciousness and complexity. Science, 282, 1846–1851.

8.1 Consciousness

8.1.1 Introduction

8.1.2 Perception

8.2 Dualism

8.2.1 Introduction

8.2.2 Criticism

8.3 Physicalism

8.4 Externalism

8.5 Panpsychism

8.6 Illusionism

8.7 Neuroscience

8.7.1 Theoretical neuroscience

8.7.2 Experimental neuroscience

8.7.3 Computational neuroscience

8.8 Language

8.8.1 Origin of language

8.8.2 Universal grammar

8.8.3 Animal cognition

8.9 Free will

8.10 Artificial intelligence and mind

8.10.1 Introduction

8.10.2 Symbolic vs connectionist AI

8.10.3 Criticism

8.10.4 Counter criticism

8.10.5 Computer vision and mind

8.10.6 Language models and mind

8.11 My thoughts

8.12 Annotated bibliography

8.12.1 Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat?

8.12.1.1 My thoughts

8.12.2 Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained.

8.12.2.1 My thoughts

8.12.3 Chalmers, D. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.

8.12.3.1 My thoughts

8.12.4 Kurzweil, R. (2012). How to Create a Mind.

8.12.4.1 My thoughts

8.12.5 More articles to do

8.13 Links and encyclopedia articles

8.13.1 SEP

8.13.2 IEP

8.13.3 Wikipedia

8.13.4 Others

8.13.5 Videos