Topic guide · Consciousness and philosophy / Cells, circuits and brains
How does the brain contribute to a sense of self?
Specify which aspect of selfhood is being explained, then compare embodied, network and philosophical perspectives.
Topic guide · Consciousness and philosophy / Cells, circuits and brains
What do we mean by conscious experience?
Separate experience, its contents, reports about it and proposed explanations; compare several attributed research perspectives.
Topic guide · Consciousness and philosophy / Reasoning and decisions / Methods, evidence and reproducibility
Do brain recordings show that free will is an illusion?
Analyse the gap between an experimental task, a neural prediction and a philosophical conclusion about control.
Topic guide · Evolution and other minds / Consciousness and philosophy / Methods, evidence and reproducibility
How can we investigate consciousness in other animals?
Compare evidence about experience with evidence about particular behavioural abilities, while making alternative explanations explicit.
Topic guide · Consciousness and philosophy / Methods, evidence and reproducibility / Computational approaches and AI
How can competing theories of consciousness be tested?
Distinguish a named theory, a particular prediction, a measurement and the interpretation of a result.
Lectures and explanations
Selections below prioritise source-checked annotations. Inclusion does not assess scientific correctness.
University of Oxford Podcasts · Source-checked annotation
Consciousness in Humans and in Other Things
Anil Seth explains an embodied, predictive approach to consciousness and the sense of self.
University of Oxford Podcasts · Source-checked annotation
Generative models of the mind: neural connections and cognitive integration
Inês Hipólito examines generative models, brain connectivity and cognitive integration in an argument about the organisation of mind.
University of Oxford Podcasts · Source-checked annotation
Moving beyond integration and differentiation in measures of neural dynamics
Pedro Mediano develops information-theoretic ways to distinguish redundancy and synergy when describing neural dynamics.
World Science U · Source-checked annotation
Christof Koch -- The Puzzle of Consciousness
Christof Koch introduces the problem of relating subjective experience to descriptions of brain activity.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 3 - Parts of the Soul I
Compares several historical and modern ways of dividing motives or mental processes, including accounts associated with Plato, Hume, Freud and Haidt.
World Science U · Source-checked annotation
Decision-Making in the Real World
Alfred Mele distinguishes arbitrary laboratory actions from choices made after sustained deliberation.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 3 - Foundations: Freud
Paul Bloom introduces Freud’s psychoanalytic ideas, their limitations and the historical role of unconscious mental processes in psychology.
Royal Institution · Source-checked annotation
How did consciousness evolve? - with Nicholas Humphrey
Nicholas Humphrey presents an evolutionary account of consciousness. The Royal Institution explicitly flags his restriction of phenomenal consciousness to warm-blooded animals as controversial and contrary to broad scientific opinion.
MIT OpenCourseWare · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 24: Attention and Awareness
Examines how perceptual processing differs when information is consciously experienced and when it is not.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 10 - Virtue and Habit II
Continues Aristotle’s account of virtue, discusses pleasure and flow, and introduces a situationist challenge to stable character.
World Science U · Source-checked annotation
Alfred Mele -- The Illusion of Free Will
Alfred Mele introduces free-will debates through distinctions between decisions, intentions and interpretations of Libet-style experiments.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 12 - Utilitarianism and its Critiques
Introduces moral theories and examines Mill’s utilitarianism through a dilemma about aggregate happiness and individual suffering.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 15 - Empirically-informed Responses
Compares three non-classic responses to the trolley problem that use different methods to examine apparently conflicting judgements.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Tamar Gendler introduces a course connecting philosophy, psychology, behavioural economics and literature through flourishing, morality and political thought.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 13 - Deontology
Contrasts a criticism of utilitarianism with an introduction to Kant’s account of moral duty and the agent’s will.
Open Yale Courses · Source-checked annotation
Lecture 9 - Virtue and Habit I
Connects Aristotle’s account of acquiring virtue with habituation and comparisons to conditioning and parenting practices.