New to the science of consciousness?
How scientists study experience: where it happens in the brain, how theories compete, and how to test them.
- Hakwan Lau and Masafumi Oizumi — Hakwan Lau and Masafumi Oizumi on rival scientific theories
- Bernard Baars — Bernard Baars on Global Workspace Theory, in his own words
- Christof Koch — Christof Koch on Integrated Information Theory
- Liad Mudrik, Lucia Melloni, and Michael Pitts — Liad Mudrik, Lucia Melloni and Michael Pitts on putting theories head to head in adversarial collaborations
- Megan Peters — Megan Peters on metacognition and how confident we are in our own experience
The hard problem and the physicalism debate
Is consciousness something physical science can fully explain? The classic arguments, from both sides.
- David Chalmers — David Chalmers, who named the hard problem
- Philip Goff — Philip Goff on why he thinks physicalism fails
- David Papineau — David Papineau defending physicalism
- Daniel Stoljar — Daniel Stoljar on physicalism and what we don't yet know
- Katalin Balog — Katalin Balog on phenomenal concepts
Illusionism: is consciousness an illusion?
The boldest answer to the hard problem, defended and challenged.
- Keith Frankish — Keith Frankish lays out illusionism
- Keith Frankish and Philip Goff — Keith Frankish and Philip Goff, illusionist vs. panpsychist
- François Kammerer — François Kammerer on illusionism
- François Kammerer — François Kammerer again, years later
Higher-order theories of consciousness
The family of views Richard defends: a state is conscious when we are suitably aware of being in it.
- Joe LeDoux and David Rosenthal — Joseph LeDoux and David Rosenthal on emotion and higher-order theory
- Hakwan Lau — Hakwan Lau on higher-order and perceptual reality monitoring views
- Jacob Berger — Jacob Berger on higher-order theories
- Josh Weisberg — Josh Weisberg on higher-order theory and its critics
Minds beyond the human: animals, plants and machines
Who or what else might be conscious, and how would we ever tell?
- Monica Gagliano — Monica Gagliano on plant learning and cognition
- Susan Schneider — Susan Schneider on AI consciousness
- Henry Shevlin — Henry Shevlin on machine and animal minds
- Eric Mandelbaum — Eric Mandelbaum on whole brain emulation
- Jamie Woodhouse — Jamie Woodhouse on sentientism and moral concern