The Splintered Mind
The Splintered Mind
Eric Schwitzgebel
Reflections in philosophy of psychology, broadly construed. Blog by Eric Schwitzgebel, American professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. His main interests include connections between empirical psychology, philosophy of mind, and the nature of belief, as well as Classical Chinese philosophy.
Latest Posts
Way back in April 2006, I launched The Splintered Mind. Happy 20th birthday, blog of mine! In 2006, academic blogs were cool. After the rise of Facebook and Twitter, most died. Recently, there's been something of a revival on Substack...
I offer for your consideration the following ethical motto: Do your thing. I admit: This motto doesn't sound very ethical. What if "your thing" is murdering babies for fun? Even ignoring extreme cases, what if your thing is just watching...
I've just started reading Kim Stanley Robinson's acclaimed climate-science utopia, The Ministry for the Future. How might society plausibly get it right and avert the climate disaster toward which we seem to be headed? (So far in the...
Last week I submitted my latest book manuscript to Cambridge University Press (for their "Element" series of books about 100 pages long): AI and Consciousness: A Skeptical Overview -- because you haven't heard nearly enough about AI and...
It's confusing. You applied to a PhD program in philosophy in the U.S. You haven't been admitted. You haven't been rejected. You're in limbo. Let me explain and offer some advice. Yield-Based vs. Seats-Based Admissions Yield-based. Some...
It's a philosophical truism that human conscious experience is unified: If you're at a bar, hearing music, tasting beer, and feeling pleasantly relaxed, those experiences don't occur merely side by side. They are joined together into an...
Most AI systems can be precisely copied. Suppose this is also true of future conscious AI persons, if any exist. Backup and fissioning should then be possible, transforming the significance of identity and death in ways our cultural and...
A philosophical discussion arc is a curve displaying how frequently a term appears in philosophical journal abstracts, titles, and keywords (compared to a representative universe of common philosophy words). A couple of weeks ago, I...
Philosophy should be among the most diverse of the academic disciplines. Instead, it is among the least diverse. Philosophical reflection is an essential part of the human condition, of interest to people of all cultures, races, classes,...
Let's define a discussion arc in philosophy as a curve displaying how frequently a term appears in philosophical journal abstracts, titles, and keywords. Discussion arcs can reveal trends over time, as they come and go. For example,...
Our understanding of the nature of consciousness derives mainly from our understanding of the nature of consciousness in our favorite animal (us, of course). But the features of consciousness in our favorite animal might be specific to...