A widespread assumption in the literature on concepts is that concepts form a unified, or singular, natural kind, as opposed to a set of different natural kinds. That is, advocates of different accounts disagree on which kind of thing constitutes concepts, but they agree that there is only one such …
I occasionally receive queries on how to get a job in the U.S. Here is my best guess on the matter. Further comments and suggestions are welcome.The U.S. probably has the largest number of academic jobs of any country in the world, or at least the largest number of desirable …
My student Ken Johnson made the following interesting comment. It is especially relevant to those philosophers who like to casually write that in principle, everything can be computationally simulated based on the laws of physics. Notice that there is no reason to expect that Moore’s law will hold up for …
Last week I had my first radio interview, thanks to a referral by Ron Munson. I was on a program (together with another guest) by Nevada Public Radio on whether robots are changing our identity and related issues, such as whether robots are likely to take over the world (as …
I’m in Tucson, AZ, at the conference Towards a Science of Consciousness 2006.There are a lot more people than I expected. It’s about as large as an APA meeting, I would say.I gave my talk yesterday, arguing that conceivability arguments like the zombie conceivability argument are unsound. The zombie conceivabity …
Looking for a nurse that won’t get crabby? Try this.
D. Stoljar, Ignorance and Imagination: On the Epistemic Origin of the Problem of Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press (due out in May 2006).Why is it so hard to explain phenomenal consciousness in physical (i.e., naturalistic, scientific) terms? Why do many find it easy to imagine zombies and other putative …
