Category: consciousness

You’ve probably never heard of the problem of other kidneys or spent time wondering if anyone else has kidneys. The problem of other minds is different. Even if we knew all the physical facts about the human body, we still can’t directly confirm if someone else is conscious. A brain scan can show us the…… Continue reading What the Problem of Other Minds Can Tell Us About Our Own: the minimum requirement for explaining consciousness

There’s a ghost story that was written 400 years ago and it still haunts the corridors of our conceptual architecture. In 1641 Rene Descartes neatly divided the world into two parts. On one side was the mind, a thinking thing. On the other side was matter, things with spatial dimension. His conceptual surgery was intended…… Continue reading Still Haunted by the Ghost of Descartes: why the hard problem won’t disappear

Many of us experience a quiet sense of dissonance between ourselves and the modern worldview. We know ourselves as conscious, intentional beings who seek meaning and value. But the modern worldview tells us the universe itself is indifferent and insentient. This creates a discord between our experience and our metaphysics. This article takes that felt…… Continue reading The Resonant Universe: why reality is not indifferent

James Clerk Maxwell’s work on electromagnetism was among the most important scientific achievements of the nineteenth century. Yet his contemporaries were slow to appreciate and understand his work. One of the reasons Maxwell’s theory was unappreciated was the difficulty of understanding it within the prevailing scientific paradigm. It required a conceptual shift. Maxwell replaced the…… Continue reading When Light Freezes – A Vedic answer to the hard problem of consciousness

Most people assume an explanation of consciousness will be in the language of neuroscience and dazzle us with details about how the brain works. But this is a symptom of a widespread metaphysical confusion. The challenge of the hard problem of consciousness cuts much deeper. It asks whether neuroscience is even the right explanatory domain.…… Continue reading The Hard Problem isn’t a Neuroscience Problem

Conscious experience is the essence of reality. Reality is that which is undeniable, and consciousness is exactly that. The very denial of consciousness presupposes its existence. Vedanta philosophy begins and ends with consciousness. According to Vedanta, consciousness encompasses four states or dimensions. Each dimension represents a deeper and more profound experience of reality. It’s important…… Continue reading The Conscious Dimensions of Reality – A Vedic Analysis

Naturalism is the default cultural view of the modern world. It’s a story that’s repeated so often, people accept it without questioning its truth. The naturalist story says that as scientific knowledge advances, it’s showing that the supernatural doesn’t exist and we live in an insentient and purposeless universe. Naturalists present this story as the…… Continue reading Why I’m not a Naturalist

Modern physics has produced some amazing insights into the nature of the universe. One of the most astonishing is the discovery that the fundamental forces of nature are balanced with a delicate precision. Upset this delicate balance and the universe could have collapsed in on itself before getting started. No atoms could form, which means…… Continue reading The Fingerprints of God – A finely tuned universe

The cosmological argument is a formidable argument for the existence of God. It’s not a single argument but a family of arguments with a similar theme. While there are several different versions of the argument, it’s unfortunately one of the most misunderstood. This is a vast topic, but this article outlines the general form of…… Continue reading What Caused God? – misunderstandings of the cosmological argument

In 1994 the philosopher David Chalmers raised questions about consciousness that ignited a zombie apocalypse. These weren’t questions no one had asked before. These were questions that rattled the modern orthodoxy. Many people assumed that advances in science had settled questions about an immaterial mind or soul. According to the modern story, science had exorcised…… Continue reading The Impossibly Hard Problem of Consciousness