Mental states are supposed to be brain states.
But what is a brain state?
Activation vector?
Spiking/connectivity/chemical vector.
A-team: Yes. B-team. No.
Reducible = find underlying mechanistic explanation.
Analytic: (Frege) Russell, Wittgenstein, Kripke
Phenomenology: Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty
Naturalistic (Peirce) Dewey, Quine, Fodor, Goldman, Churchlands
Current practice
Heterophenomenology?
Better than resting?
Meditation affects the brain: Davidson.
Buddhism: a way to live?
Cortical current density reconstruction
Magnetic resonance spectroscopy
1. Can there be a first person science?
2. Can first-person experience be explained mechanistically?
3. What can the method of phenomenology add to our understanding of consciousness?
4. Does meditation illuminate the nature of consciousness?
5. Does Buddhism provide insights about the meaning of life? Is enlightenment appealing?
Computational Epistemology Laboratory.
This page updated Nov. 2, 2007