Philosophers' Carnival #100
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Brain Broadcasting Corporation
(cross posted at Philosophy Sucks!) I have previously argued that synchronous neural activity is a candidate for a theoretical account of what a brain state is. Here is an Interesting article reviewing a new paper that suggests an interesting role for neural synchrony. I would be interested to hear what others thought about the idea …
Review of Philosophy and Psychology
Dario Taraborelli has asked me to attract your attention to a new journal, The Review of Philosophy of Psychology. The RPP accepts proposals for special issues as well as submitted articles, and the editors welcome articles in the philosophy of mind and psychology (Dario is the editor in chief). Keep this …
Did McCulloch and Pitts 1943 Offer a Theory of Cognition in terms of Digital Computation?
Yes! Some people don’t realize this. Someone recently objected to me that since McCulloch and Pitts were studying the brain, they must be offering only a theory of neural activity, on the same level as, say, Hodgkin and Huxley. How can I say that McCulloch and Pitts had a theory of cognition? Although …
Some Comments on: Are Mirror Neurons Evidence for Simulation Theory?
Something really weird happened today: A duplication of Shannon’s post on mirror neurons and simulation theory appeared out of the blue under my name (Gualtiero). I apologize for the inconvenience; I had nothing to do with it and hopefully it won’t happen again. (The tech support people didn’t have an …
Are mirror neurons evidence for simulation theory?
Hi folks. I’m one of the new kids on the virtual block. Thanks to Gualtiero for giving me the opportunity to contribute here. I’m interested in the relation between mirror neurons and social cognition. Mirror neurons are neurons in our brains that fire for boththe first-person experience and the third-person …
Shombies and Illuminati
Update: If anyone is interested, I posted a couple more thoughts on this discussion at Philosophy Sucks! On Tuesday I attended a discussion with Kati Balog of her paper Zombies, Illuminati, and Metaphysical Gridlock which was very interesting. She begins by thinking about zombies and the things they say. If there …