Theo Todman's Book Collection (Book-Paper Abstracts)

BOOK ABSTRACT:

Contents

Introduction: Taking Consciousness Seriously

PART I: FOUNDATIONS
1. Two Concepts of Mind
   ... What is consciousness?
   ... The phenomenal and the psychological concepts of mind
   ... The double life of mental terms
   ... The two mind-body problems
   ... Two concepts of consciousness
2. Supervenience¹ and Explanation
   ... Supervenience²
   ... Reductive explanation
   ... Logical supervenience³ and reductive explanation
   ... Conceptual truth and necessary truth
   ... Almost everything is logically supervenient on the physical
   
   PART II: THE IRREDUCIBILITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
3. Can Consciousness be Reductively Explained?
   ... Is consciousness logically supervenient on the physical?
   ... The failure of reductive explanation
   ... Cognitive modeling
   ... Neurophysiological explanation
   ... The appeal to new physics
   ... Evolutionary explanations
   ... Whither reductive explanation?
4. Naturalistic Dualism
   ... An argument against materialism
   ... Objection from a posteriori necessity
   ... Other arguments for dualism
   ... Is this epiphenomenalism?
   ... The logical geography of the issues
   ... Reflections on naturalistic dualism
5. The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment
   ... Consciousness and cognition
   ... The paradox of phenomenal judgment
   ... On explaining phenomenal judgments
   ... Arguments against explanatory irrelevance
   ... The argument from self-knowledge
   ... The argument from memory
   ... The argument from reference
   
   PART III: TOWARD A THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
6. On the Coherence between Consciousness and Cognition
   ... Toward a nonreductive theory
   ... Principles of coherence
   ... More on the notion of awareness
   ... The explanatory role of coherence principles
   ... Coherence as a psychophysical law
7. Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia
   ... The principle of organizational invariance
   ... Absent qualia
   ... Fading qualia
   ... Inverted qualia
   ... Dancing qualia
   ... Nonreductive functionalism
8. Consciousness and Information: Some Speculation
   ... Toward a fundamental theory
   ... Aspects of information
   ... Some supporting arguments
   ... Is experience ubiquitous?
   ... The metaphysics of information
   ... Open question
   
   PART IV: APPLICATIONS
9. Strong Artificial Intelligence
   ... Machine consciousness
   ... On implementing a computation
   ... In defense of strong AI
   ... The Chinese room and other objections
   ... External objections
   ... Conclusion
10. The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
    ... Two mysteries
    ... The framework of quantum mechanics
    ... Interpreting quantum mechanics
    ... The Everett interpretation
    ... Objections to the Everett interpretation
11. Conclusion