Philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body.
Philosophical zombieA philosophical zombie (or "p-zombie") is a being in a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal person but does not have conscious experience. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object, it would not feel any pain, but it would behave exactly the way any conscious human would. Philosophical zombie arguments are used against forms of physicalism and in defense of the "hard problem of consciousness", which is the problem of accounting in physical terms for subjective, intrinsic, first-person, what-it's-like-ness experiences.
Hard problem of consciousnessThe hard problem of consciousness is a philosophical problem concerning why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give humans and other animals the ability to discriminate, integrate information, perform behavioural functions, or provide behavioural reports, and so forth.
QualiaIn philosophy of mind, qualia (ˈkwɑːliə,_ˈkweɪ-; singular form: quale -li) are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis (ˈkwaːlɪs) meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in relation to a specific instance, such as "what it is like to taste a specific applethis particular apple now". Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, and the redness of an evening sky.
Philosophy of perceptionThe philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or metaphysical views. Philosophers distinguish internalist accounts, which assume that perceptions of objects, and knowledge or beliefs about them, are aspects of an individual's mind, and externalist accounts, which state that they constitute real aspects of the world external to the individual.
Inverted spectrumThe inverted spectrum is the hypothetical concept, pertaining to the philosophy of color, of two people sharing their color vocabulary and discriminations, although the colors one sees—one's qualia—are systematically different from the colors the other person sees. The concept dates back to John Locke. It invites us to imagine that we wake up one morning, and find that for some unknown reason all the colors in the world have been inverted, i.e. swapped to the hue on the opposite side of a color wheel, the complementary color.
Chinese roomThe Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a "mind", "understanding", or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was presented by philosopher John Searle in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. Similar arguments were presented by Gottfried Leibniz (1714), Anatoly Dneprov (1961), Lawrence Davis (1974) and Ned Block (1978).
PanpsychismIn the philosophy of mind, panpsychism (pænˈsaɪkɪzəm) is the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe." It is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales, Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, and Galen Strawson.
Subjective character of experienceThe subjective character of experience is a term in psychology and the philosophy of mind denoting that all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view ("ego"). The term was coined and illuminated by Thomas Nagel in his famous paper "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" Nagel argues that, because bats are apparently conscious mammals with a way of perceiving their environment entirely different from that of human beings, it is impossible to speak of "what is it like to be a bat for the bat" or, while the example of the bat is particularly illustrative, any conscious species, as each organism has a unique point of view from which no other organism can gather experience.
Direct and indirect realismIn the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, are differing models that describe the nature of conscious experiences; out of the metaphysical question of whether the world we see around us is the real world itself or merely an internal perceptual copy of that world generated by our conscious experience. Indirect realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework.
