The three faces of racism
Why are black people stopped by police more than white people? Is it simply the actions of an explicitly racist contingent? Or is there something more nuanced at play? Cognitive dissonance is at the...
View ArticleBelief, hypocrisy and reason
Belief, Hypocrisy and Reason was the theme for our Global festival in September 2020. In the current issue of IAI News we are developing the theme and identifying the most persistent hypocrisies of...
View ArticleThe truth play
Even amid a so-called post-truth era, truth telling is seen as a virtue. But what does it mean to tell the truth? Rather than simply reporting what we earnestly believe, telling the truth is a way of...
View ArticleThe self in the cloud
Our identity is not just about our internal memories, beliefs, hopes and fears. We are made up equally of our environment, of things outside ourselves – for example, by how we react to people and...
View ArticleBeam me up, Scotty?
Is our personal identity just the particular make up of our physical bodies at a particular point in time? And if so, would a teletransporter that replicated our physical bodies on Mars preserve our...
View ArticleMe, myself and others
Loneliness has increased over lockdown. However, in our technological, hyper-social world, we are never truly alone in the modern world. To gain the treasures of solitude we must become more...
View ArticleI cannot be cloned
If I clone myself what relation does the clone have to me? And what does this tell me about what makes me – me? My clone is not my self. It will be different in personality, cognition, as well as its...
View ArticleThe identity politics trap
Our social identity is important for our sense of self-worth. But the very concept of social identity implies the exclusion of everyone else. In the political realm, that exclusion can quickly turn...
View ArticleYou don’t need an identity
A strong, rigid identity is commonly understood as a strength. However, the very idea of a fixed identity is premised on a philosophical myth: having a complete, all-encompassing account of The Truth,...
View ArticleChoosing the self we want to be
Should you become a parent? Should you change your career? Decisions such as these change the directions of our lives in irreversible ways. However, it is not just your life that’s changing, it is...
View ArticleWhy The Mind Is Not the Brain
One of the youngest philosophy professors in Germany, Markus Gabriel teaches in 16 languages, dreads metaphysics and thinks that the philosophy of mind needs to tighten up. Author of ‘I Am Not A...
View ArticlePsychedelics and the hard problem of consciousness
The map is not the territory. The modelled brain is not consciousness. ‘This’ – the ineffable quality of subjective experience – is consciousness. No scientific description can ever reach it. The...
View ArticleFree will vs determinism: Can you escape fate?
Most of us feel as though we can freely choose our actions. But what if this feeling of free choice is an illusion? From neuroscientists to spiritualists to philosophers, many are now arguing that the...
View ArticleKnowing what to believe
Just like the ancient Greek maxim “know thyself”, new cognitive neuroscience suggest that cultivating self-awareness is key to wisdom. Stephen M Fleming outlines new experiments that image the brain...
View ArticleThe brain doesn't create consciousness
The materialist assumption that consciousness is produced by the brain is on the decline. New theories, such as panpsychism, the idea that consciousness exists throughout the physical universe, are on...
View ArticleAre you responsible for your unconscious self?
Our choices and actions are often influenced by factors we aren’t conscious of. That has lead some philosophers to claim that we can’t possibly be held morally accountable for those actions since we...
View ArticleThe bias paradox
While we think of ourselves as being the rational animal, we humans falll victim to all sorts of biases. From the Dunning-Kruger Effect to Confirmation Bias, there are countless psychological traps...
View ArticleThe Dangers of Musk’s Neuralink
Elon Musk is designing an electronic brain implant. The implant could help people with disabilities, improve our cognitive abilities and even lead to a form of digital immortality. But the technology...
View ArticleConsciousness and higher spatial dimensions
The hard problem of consciousness is the most pressing unsolved mystery in both philosophy and science. To solve such a problem, we are going to need revolutionary ways of thinking. Philosopher of...
View ArticleMoral responsibility without free will
The issue of free-will is perhaps the most fundamental question in Philosophy. We hold ourselves and others accountable for our various successes and mishaps, yet determinists hold that we aren’t in...
View ArticleConsciousness is the collapse of the wave function
Quantum mechanics suggests that particles can be in a state of superposition - in two states at the same time - until a measurement take place. Only then does the wavefunction describing the particle...
View ArticleFree will or no free will, punishment is justified
The topic of free will continues to be a hotbed for discussion and disagreement. The most pressing questions remain: What is free will? And how does it affect the notion of moral responsibility? Here,...
View ArticleThe impotence of reason
Many of us recognize the serious ethical problems confronting us, and want to change the world towards the better. So why do so few of us go on to do so, even when we are convinced that we should? At...
View ArticleSchrödinger and the conscious universe
Most assume that matter is fundamental, and that consciousness arises out of the complexity of matter. But Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger does not share that assumption. For...
View ArticleWhy panpsychism is baloney
Not only does panpsychism have questionable value as a philosophical hypothesis; not only is it flat-out refuted by empirical science; but even the very intuitions that motivate panpsychists turn out...
View ArticleImagination, consciousness and animal dreams
We tend to think of imagination as a distinctly human ability. But already from Roman times, philosophers pointed out that animals can dream, and that dreaming involves the imagination. Today we have...
View ArticleThe free will debate has real-world consequences
Debates surrounding free will in analytic philosophy often seem divorced from the realities of everyday life. Yet when applied to the real world it is clear to see that people’s ability to exercise...
View ArticleDenis Noble: Free will is not an illusion
“My genes made me do it” encapsulates how many geneticists, following the footsteps of Richard Dawkins, think of our genome’s relationship to us: complete control over our mind and body. That...
View ArticleConsciousness may not require a brain
Our default intuition when it comes to consciousness is that humans and some other animals have it, whereas plants and trees don’t. But how sure can we be that plants aren’t conscious? And what if...
View ArticleBig tech doesn’t want AI to become conscious
Artificial intelligence can be impressive to the extent that people think it might one day acquire human intelligence and, with it, consciousness. But AI can be far more intelligent than humans...
View ArticlePinker on the power of irrationality
Steven Pinker is an arch defender of Enlightenment ideals, reason in particular. He sees the contemporary drift towards conspiracy theories, skepticism towards science, and denial of progress as great...
View ArticleFuture AI in the therapist's chair
If future Artificial Intelligence were to develop sufficiently, it’s not unlikely that it would begin to question what humans have wondered for years: can AI really acquire consciousness? In this...
View ArticleWhen are intuitions a good guide to reality?
Two weeks ago Edouard Machery argued against the idea that common sense is a good guide to reality. Common sense relies on intuition; and intuitions are unreliable, vary greatly across cultures and...
View ArticleNietzsche: ignorance sets us free
Dealing with uncertainty is a part of human life. Since human cognitive abilities are not up to the task of elucidating reality, we might think that we are forever doomed to an epistemic prison....
View ArticleWhy Steven Pinker is wrong about rationality
Rationality leads to better choices in our lives and is the ultimate driver of moral progress claimed famous author and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. Yet many, including groundbreaking...
View ArticleThere is no such thing as weak will
If we sincerely believe that a particular choice is the right one to make, all things considered, then how is it possible that we can voluntarily do something else? It’s not true that we’re weak...
View ArticleConsciousness begins with feeling, not thinking
Forget ‘I think therefore I am’. In a new theory of embodied consciousness, the neuroscientists Antonio Damasio and Hanna Damasio propose that feelings are the source of consciousness. Long dismissed...
View ArticleThe absurdity of mind as machine
Our inability to explain consciousness and intentionality is an entirely modern problem. Before the modern epoch, very few would have thought it sensible to ask whether it was the soul or the organism...
View ArticleIs rationality a fiction?
At the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival earlier this year, award-winning English novelist Joanna Kavenna, renowned public intellectual Rory Sutherland, and pioneering philosopher Rebecca Roache met to...
View ArticleBrain noise doesn't explain consciousness
The foremost physiological effect of psychedelics in the brain is to significantly reduce activity in multiple brain areas, which contradicts the mainstream reductionist expectation. Physicalist...
View ArticleAnil Seth: The hallucination of consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness has puzzled philosophers and neuroscientists alike for decades. Here a philosopher, Riccardo Manzotti, and a neuroscientist, Anil Seth, meet to discuss consciousness,...
View ArticleDavid Nutt: entropy explains consciousness
In response to Bernardo Kastrup’s scathing criticisms of materialist explanations of the states of consciousness induced by psychedelics, David Nutt argues that we don’t need to adopt an untestable...
View ArticleNietzsche and the myth of free will
The idea that free will is an illusion is rife. Everyone from neuroscientists to philosophers, podcasters to mystics, is arguing that the idea we are truly in control of our decisions and actions is...
View ArticleBias doesn't always undermine truth
Most of us tend to think that biased reasoning always leads us astray. But Katherine Puddifoot challenges this common-sense assumption and argues that motivated reasoning can lead us towards the...
View ArticleBrain vs Heart: a false dichotomy
Within Western thought, cognition and emotion have traditionally been conceived as adversaries. Thomas Dixon debunks this reason/feeling dichotomy and its historical connection with patriarchal ideas....
View ArticleFree will is an invention
Lightning flashes. But is there a lightning doing the flashing? Or is it a single process? And similarly, when ‘you choose’ is there a ‘you’ ‘choosing’, or is this again one process? Nietzsche argues...
View ArticleNo current theory of consciousness is scientific
A letter by distinguished scientists sought to discredit a leading theory of consciousness as pseudoscience. That was mistake. No theory of consciousness is currently empirically testable, so strictly...
View ArticleQuantum mechanics and the puzzle of subjectivity
Despite their huge success, the natural sciences have a problem: they don’t seem to leave much room for the human subject. Edmund Husserl thought this was reason enough to declare science was in...
View ArticleConsciousness does not require a self
The idea that consciousness requires a self has been around since at least Descartes. But problems of infinite regress, neuroscientific studies, and psychedelic experiences point to a different...
View ArticleConsciousness does not cause your actions
Motivated by Darwin’s theory of evolution, we think consciousness must have a function. We think consciousness must play some role in our behaviour, and be able to cause and influence what we do. We...
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