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

And why you should care about the answer. … One of my readers responded to my article Why Consciousness is Such a Big Deal. They were surprised I would argue consciousness is fatal to the philosophy of naturalism and therefore it must be supernatural. The first thing to note is, I didn’t use the word…… Continue reading Is Consciousness Natural?

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

Understanding the Spiritual World View. Consciousness is a hot topic these days, but most of the popular discussion misses the point. It either misunderstands the hard problem of consciousness, or sidesteps it. One example of the sidestep is found in neuroscientist Anil Seth’s book, Being You. He sets aside the hard problem of “why and how consciousness…… Continue reading Why Consciousness is Such a Big Deal

The best explanations of the world are not only the most accurate, they’re as simple as possible. There is an elegant simplicity to Einstein’s e=mc2, and yet it encapsulates a profound truth. This principle of explanatory simplicity is called parsimony. According to modern propaganda, naturalism is the simplest explanation of the world. It’s claimed that we…… Continue reading The Elegant Simplicity of Idealism

Naturalism is the cultural dogma 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 proving beyond reasonable doubt there is no God, no eternal soul, no afterlife, and we live in an insentient and purposeless universe.…… Continue reading Why I’m not a Naturalist