Making Sense of the Mental Universe

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confirmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation

Book Review

The intellectual force in this scientifically and technologically oriented century, as Gatland and Dempster indicate, resides with men who have renaissance minds that can ably embrace scientific as well as societal propositions, reason anew and reach unique and far-reaching conclusions beyond the realm of current thought. To date, the intellectual strength of the lawyer has been his pervading understanding of problems from every societal view. This test can remain valid; however, the province of the legal skill-elite group must range far beyond his traditional social science touchstones into decidedly esoteric scientific subjects. The horizon of jurisprudence now embraces the mechanical universe of Newton, the relativistic universe of Einstein, and perhaps even the levels of energy universe of Helmut Hoeppner

'The Brain Is a Book Which Reads Itself': Cultured Brains and Reductive Materialism from Diderot to J. J. C. Smart

Materialist philosophers claim that everything real, is somehow material inasmuch as it belongs to the physical, ‘spacetime’ world of causes and effects, from microbes to volcanoes, from tables and chairs to paintings and love letters. In modern times (starting in the Enlightenment and reaching full velocity in the twentieth century, notably with the adopted Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart) materialists have specifically been interested in the particular ‘region’ of minds and brains. That is, from a general metaphysical position on how we belong to the material universe, materialism focused on the particular case of how our minds would be material in the sense of being brains, i.e., how mental states are brain states. In what follows I will focus on this status of the brain as a problem or starting-point for materialists, while also maintaining a certain idea of ‘discontinuity’ regarding different attitudes towards the brain

Digital Theology: Is the Resurrection Virtual?

Many recent writers have developed a rich system of theological concepts inspired by computers. This is digital theology. Digital theology shares many elements of its eschatology with Christian post-millenarianism. It promises a utopian perfection via technological progress. Modifying Christian soteriology, digital theology makes reference to four types of immortality. I look critically at each type. The first involves transferring our minds from our natural bodies to superior computerized bodies. The second and third types involve bringing into being a previously living person, or person who has never existed, within an artificial digital environment. The fourth involves promotion of our lives into some higher level computational reality

Panpsychism, Panprotopsychism, and Neutral Monism

This chapter provides an introduction to panpsychism, panprotopsychism, and neutral monism to an interdisciplinary audience