I have just read three heavy papers in scientific philosophy by Professor Raymond Tallis
- “What Consciousness is Not,” The New Atlantis, Fall, 2011, pp. 66-91;
- “What Neuroscience Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves,” The New Atlantis, Fall, 2010, pp. 1-25;
- “How Can I Possibly Be Free?” The New Atlantis, Summer, 2010, pp. 28-47.
The papers are available on the net, and readable for non-specialist who have time to put in on a Saturday night rather than decaying in front of the TV. The issues related to debates, at the time, but as far as I know, still ongoing, attempting to account for the nature of mind, human mind, in the universe. In particular, philosophers have heartburn attempting to explain how mental experience fits into the universe. From a scientific materialist perspective, we could be zombies, having the neural activity we do now, but no consciousness, This leads hard-core eliminative materialists to reject the existence of consciousness itself. But, this merely begs the question, since by the same “logic,” we could argue the other way and reject the existence of material objects, in favour of only perceptions as Bishop Berkeley apparently did.
