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Emergentism revisited

Musholt, Kristina (2005) Emergentism revisited. [Conference Poster] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The “explanatory gap” is proposed to be the “hard problem” of consciousness research and has generated a great deal of recent debate. Arguments brought forward to reveal this gap include the conceivability of zombies or the “super-neuroscientist” Mary. These are supposed to show that the facts of consciousness are not a priori entailed by the microphysical facts. Similar arguments were already proposed by emergence theories in the context of the debate between mechanism and vitalism. According to synchronic emergentism, the property of a system is emergent, when it cannot - in principle - be deduced from a complete description of the system’s components. Here, I argue that apart from phenomenal properties there are many other properties that, even though they are clearly physical, are not reductively explainable either. The explanatory gap of consciousness is therefore only a part of a much more general problem.

Item Type:Conference Poster
Keywords:emergence, consciousness, qualia, explanatory gap, hard problem, reductive explanation, pragmatism
Subjects:Philosophy > Philosophy of Mind
ID Code:6018
Deposited By: Musholt, Kristina
Deposited On:24 Apr 2008 16:38
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:57

References in Article

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