New episode of the Fathom the Mind podcast: I spoke with philosopher of science Prof. Michel Bitbol about phenomenology, the “hard problem” of consciousness, and why revisiting common assumptions may be exactly what scientists need to make progress. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ynr...

What is the objective world? Prof. Piet Hut on the history of material science. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgZC...

On the first episode of Fathom the Mind, a new podcast produced by @the-ccr.bsky.social, Prof. Piet Hut discusses his new research program to bridge matter and mind. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyOD... #consci #contemplativesci

Episode 2 of our new podcast The Blind Spot with @adamfrank4.bsky.social and Marcelo Gleiser. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XGa...

This online series of talks regarding contemplative science begins in two days.

If you're interested in #meditation #yoga #breathwork #psychedelics or other #mindbody research, this is your conference! Stay tuned for more info. #contemplativeresearch #contemplativescience #contemplativeneuroscience

reminder that you can attend this great symposium on zoom! talks from heavy hitters, just a stellar lineup. grateful to be included. tomorrow & friday, Jan 16-17, pacific time. #neuroskyence #psychscisci #consciousness #neuroscience #philosophy #theory #psychology www.chapman.edu/scst/confere...

I‘ll be giving a talk titled “What is contemplative science?” on February 5, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. PST, as part of the online series The Dawn of Contemplative Science, hosted by Les Cèdres Bleus. Speaker list and registration: mailchi.mp/217ea31ae020...

I'm grateful to have won the Sanders Prize in Philosophy of Mind! And it's for "A Theory of Sense-Data," where I defend one of the most unpopular, ill-reputed, and disparaged views in all of philosophy. philpapers.org/rec/LEEATO-3

…or artificial conation, for that matter. doi.org/10.1002/1520...

For anyone interested in the mind, I strongly recommend Prof. Piet Hut’s new blog “FEST” (= Fully Engaged Science and Technology — or, alternatively, Fully Empirical Science and Technology). piethut.substack.com

“The crucial point here is that we do not have empirical access to any form of matter, where empirical is defined as given in experience” —Piet Hut piethut.substack.com/p/empirical-...

In a new chapter published by Routledge, B. Alan Wallace and I discuss how professional contemplatives can work with neuroscientists, psychologists, and even physicists—not just as study participants, but as true colleagues who help frame the research. www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi... #consci

"Nobody pulls out a clock to know what time is, only what time it is." Robert Crease's perfect summary of our analysis of time (including the Bergson vs Einstein debate) in The Blind Spot. lareviewofbooks.org/article/what...

A short excerpt from The Blind Spot in Big Think. bigthink.com/13-8/why-sci...

Now out in Nature: Artificial Intelligence and Illusions of Understanding in Scientific Research, coauthored with the brilliant @lmesseri.bsky.social and edited by the supremely talented Mary Elizabeth Sutherland www.nature.com/articles/s41...

“Not only does this imply that we have to take consistency of mathematics, as we understand it today, on faith. It also suggests that there’s actually no objective criterion as to which axioms we should choose for doing mathematics.” iai.tv/articles/mat...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzwC... “…avoid the thought that a new metaphysical understanding would invalidate any of science. It may invalidate some assumptions you made about how those scientific observations come to be. But the observations reflect true regularities…” —Bernardo Kastrup

Open-access book on the phenomenology of pure consciousness:

“Considerable non-replication is thus to be expected even with the best reporting practices, and generalizations from single studies are rarely if ever warranted. … And that means we should treat statistical results as being much more incomplete and uncertain than is currently the norm.”

“Thus, a clear-cut distinction between subjective and objective measurements is neither advantageous nor useful, provided that the correct methodology is applied to rule out possible biases and other phenomena.” —Fabrizio Benedetti Placebo Effects, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press 2014. #consci

“In this view, reality is not a pre-written script but a participatory drama, with each observer playing a crucial role in shaping their experience. As Fuchs put it in a lecture earlier this year, in QBism, ‘when I take an action on the world, something genuinely new comes out.’” #consciousness

“Even within the subfield of neuroscience where talk of consciousness is accepted, the number of scientists actually working with an open mind on new scientific theories of consciousness is extremely small.” #consciousness

MIT Press now has all the blurbs up for our book The Blind Spot!

Are you feeling sick? NIBIB says it has expanded its free "Home Test to Treat program" beyond just COVID-19 Adults will now be able to get Pfizer's Lucira molecular home tests, which were authorized by FDA earlier this year for both COVID-19 and influenza www.nih.gov/news-events/...

(2/2) Some researchers argue that we can’t know what people subjectively experience. All we know is what people *think* they experience. This drives skepticism towards consciousness research. I show that these worries are unwarranted. We can objectively know what people see.

(1/2) I have a new paper related to the problem of objectively determining what people consciously experience. It's here: philpapers.org/rec/MICTOA-2. Published in a book coming out soon on 'Conscious and Unconscious Mentality'. The book looks really great!

“Every scientific paper should have a reflexive treatment of the experimental investigation as a cultural practice that contributes to how the phenomena are being framed and understood.”

My latest for Aeon. 30 years ago we gave up the assumption that language is needed for consciousness, with great results. But consciousness remains puzzling. I suggest we can make real progress into the nature of consciousness by giving up the assumption that it requires a complex brain.

“A next frontier in #consciousness research is the disclosure of our metaphysical conflict of interests. Those who proudly claim they have no point of view are indeed blind. There is not a more dangerous philosophy than a science that pretends it does not have one. Know thy metaphysics!”

The Global Flourishing Conference will be virtual and free to attend. 29–30 November 2023 #FlourishingConf www.humanflourishing.org

Than some knew, I'd say. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Thanks to Carlo Rovelli for this new blurb for The Blind Spot: “An intriguing and important reflection on the complexity of the role that we ourselves play within the scientific world picture.” www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739505...

Good to see philosophers reconsidering introspection in light of mindfulness meditation practices.

Hello everyone. I have decided to give BlueSky a try. Any neuroscience folks out there?

Thanks to Ricardo Lopez for inviting me to the Dissenter podcast series. The outcome is here youtu.be/KwTyeSVSXG4 — we briefly touch on various aspects of my book Perspectival realism.

New Bluesky users! Before following people, I strongly advise filling out your profile. This helps people decide whether or not to follow you back. I also advise making at least one post to show you're not just creating a placeholder acct & leaving. For more tips, see debbieohi.link/bluesky-tips

Clearly argued paper from Lisa Miracchi Titus on why current AI models (instances of what she calls “statistics-of-occurrence” models or ‘SOMs’) lack semantic understanding. #philsky #philsci #consciousness www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Stuart Kauffman's blurb: “We are in a crisis that is global and civilizational in scale and existential. A conceptual transformation is needed. The Blind Spot shows us why.”

“When John thinks about himself, he is thinking about John, but not when he is thinking about his self; he can hurt himself but not his self (whatever role these curious entities play in our mental world).” —Noam Chomsky, “What Kind of Creatures Are We?” #consciousness #linguistics

“Another potential growth area for PS is in the use of mixed methods. … Best practice guides from psychology and neighboring fields (e.g., Humphreys et al., 2021; Reischer & Cowan, 2020) can encourage the responsible use of qualitative and mixed methods.” —@simine.com #consciousness #consci

Another wonderful feed called "𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵" was made by @singhal.bsky.social! It follows #consciousness hashtags. Find it here 👉 bsky.app/profile/did:...

I'm making a 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱 to help us move over. 👉 It follows all of the wonderful people in consciousness science. Everyone from ASSC, AMCS, MESEC, etc. is cordially invited! Ping me or answer to be added! Find it here: bsky.app/profile/did:... Initial list 😍 ⬇️

My blurb: "Not since William James has such meticulous attention been given to pure awareness experiences & their significance for science & philosophy. Metzinger has performed a Herculean labor & no future science of consciousness will be possible without assimilating his findings and arguments."

On Aphantasia, Imagery, and Embodiment: New paper out this week in Nature Reviews Psychology, with Emiko Muraki and Laura Speed: rdcu.be/dj7UQ

🚨 Submission deadline in one week! Don't forget to send your presentation proposal for #CDSM23. More info ➡️ causalscience.org

Twitter has the highest prevalence of disinformation among six online platforms studied by the EU. Fake news comes primarily from Russia’s disinformation operation, a "weapon of mass manipulation." www.scmp.com/tech/big-tec...

It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that turned out to be the science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe that are concealed by appearances. —Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind

This statement seems unobjectionable to me. Can anyone point me to cogent arguments that argue against it? #consciousness