Descartes proposed intuitive dualism, the idea that the mind is fundamentally separate from the physical body

Overview Debates Related claims Topics

Human consciousness and experience are substrate-independent and could be implemented on silicon hardware

The 'hard problem of consciousness' is not an unsolvable metaphysical problem

There is no metaphysical separation between consciousness and the physical, or between mind and body

Consciousness, soul, spirit, and body are different languages for talking about the same phenomena

The term 'consciousness' is a modern, more scientific-sounding word for what was traditionally called the 'soul'

Describing a person in terms of their soul or consciousness is using a different, appropriate language, not referring to a separate substance from their body

Computer scientist David Galernter has written articles arguing against the idea that consciousness does not exist

One school of philosophy of mind posits that humans are machines without free will, programmed by their genes

Most scientific theories of consciousness are functionalist, defining consciousness by the functions it performs

Aldous Huxley described the brain as a 'reducing valve' that filters a larger field of consciousness down to what is necessary for survival

Filter theories of consciousness, from thinkers like Henri Bergson and Aldous Huxley, posit that consciousness is a field existing outside the brain

One theory of consciousness proposes that the brain acts as a receiver for consciousness, rather than generating it

The metaphor of the brain as a computer is flawed because the distinction between hardware and software does not exist in the brain

Within materialism, consciousness is often dismissed as an epiphenomenon of the brain or a hallucination.

Emotions are understood by their function rather than their specific constitution in a nervous system.

Emotions are a type of functional state.

Studying consciousness is challenging because it is an internal, subjective phenomenon, unlike externally measurable subjects.

Thomas Nagel defined a conscious system as one for which "there is something it is like to be that system."

Data on conscious experiences must be gathered indirectly through methods like introspection or verbal reports.

The study of consciousness is philosophically challenging due to metaphysical questions about its relation to the physical universe.