word/taste synaesthesia
The NY Times Nov 23 front page has an article about word/taste synaesthesia: there are 10 people known who experience tastes when they hear (or read) words.
Category: Consciousness
First-person Data vs. Sense Data
David Chalmers helpfully pointed out that the first relevant use of “first-person data” appears to be due to Herbert Feigl (in “The ‘Mental’ and the ‘Physical’”, 1958). This brings up what seems to me a confusion in the current literature between first-person data as a kind of scientific data and …
First-person Data
The expression “first-person data” has become quite common in the consciousness studied literature, where it is used to refer to data about conscious experience, sometimes with the implication that these data are obtained only through introspection, and sometimes with the further implication that these are private data (as opposed to …
The Unreliability of Introspection
Traditionally, many philosophers like to attribute special status to at least some kinds of knowledge that we have of our minds. The purported reliability of introspection is often invoked by those who propose to construct a first-person science–a science based on private evidence delivered through introspection. Even Daniel Dennett, a naturalist …
Course on Consciousness
Next spring, I’m teaching a cross-listed upper undergraduate/graduate course on consciousness for the first time. I’d like to strike a good balance between philosophical and scientific readings. Does anyone have suggestions as to what is a must-read in the huge literature on consciousness? From an informal survey, it seems to me …
Stereo Sue
Oliver Sacks writes about Sue, who (through vision therapy) recovered stereoscopic vision (STEREO SUE., Sacks, Oliver, New Yorker, 0028792X, 6/19/2006, Vol. 82, Issue 18). She had lost it when she was very young, and then recovered it through intensive vision therapy. She was (is) completely thrilled by this. Sacks writes, …
Does dualism make a difference?
On my long, long list of “Things I Don’t Really Have Time to Think About But Wish I Did” is the following simple question: Does dualism make a difference to one’s overall view of the mind? Since some might assume that the obvious answer to the question is an obvious …