The Boundary Problem for Conscious Systems
Where one mind ends and another begins may have no definite answer
Why Machine Consciousness Remains Uncertain
We lack the tools to know if machines can experience—and that uncertainty itself demands serious reckoning
Why Consciousness Seems Simple But Is Not
The phenomenon we know best remains the one we understand least—exploring consciousness's deceptive self-evidence
Higher-Order Thought Theory's Consciousness Requirement
When thoughts think about thoughts: how Rosenthal's theory makes consciousness a matter of mental self-representation
What Dreams Reveal About Consciousness
Every night, your brain generates entire worlds without external input—revealing consciousness as fundamentally creative rather than receptive
Why Panpsychism Deserves Serious Consideration
Leading consciousness researchers increasingly take panpsychism seriously—understanding why reveals deep truths about the mind-body problem
Attention and Consciousness Are Not Identical
Emerging evidence reveals that selecting information and experiencing it are distinct processes with different neural bases.
Phenomenal Concepts and the Physicalist Strategy
Can reframing how we think about experience dissolve the apparent gap between brain and mind?
Why Consciousness Might Be Fundamental
If consciousness can't be reduced to physics, perhaps it belongs alongside mass and charge as a basic feature of reality.
Why Representationalism Cannot Fully Explain Experience
Mental representation captures what experience is about—but not what experience is like
Integrated Information Theory's Radical Implications
When consciousness becomes identical to causal structure, everything we assumed about minds and machines requires revision.
Why Functionalism Cannot Capture Qualia
Thought experiments reveal why defining mental states by what they do may never capture what experience intrinsically is
The Unity of Consciousness Problem
Why your seamless experience emerges from billions of separate neurons remains consciousness science's deepest structural puzzle
Neural Correlates Are Not Neural Causes
Why mapping brain states that accompany experience cannot explain how those states generate the felt quality of consciousness.
Consciousness and Time: The Specious Present
The extended now reveals how consciousness generates duration from neural processes distributed across objective time
Why Zombies Matter for Consciousness Theory
Philosophical zombies expose what consciousness theories must actually explain—forcing precision about the hard problem that neuroscience alone cannot dissolve.
What Mary Really Learns
Frank Jackson's knowledge argument reveals why complete physical information about consciousness might still leave something essential unexplained
The Hard Problem Refuses to Dissolve
Why explaining everything about brain function still leaves the mystery of felt experience untouched and waiting
Why We Cannot Explain the Redness of Red
Science can map every neuron involved in seeing red, yet the felt quality of redness remains utterly unexplained—revealing consciousness's deepest mystery.
What Global Workspace Theory Actually Explains
Distinguishing what global workspace architecture genuinely explains about cognitive access from what remains mysterious about phenomenal experience itself.