An impassable chasm that exists between the subjective and objective world
Which one is the zombie?
What is IT?
Attention keeps jumping from one object to the next
Cartesian dualism that suggests our subjective is an immutable spirit living in a purely mechanical body
What is the experience of drinking beer and how can it be reduced or compared between individuals?
What would Mary experience if she grew up all her life without the colour red and was then given a red rose? Would she already have a concept of the colour?
Descartes’ theory would require a physical interface between the ghost and machine, like a homunculus living in our brains watching everything – but this doesn’t solve the physical/subjective barrier problem
Do you see a cube? Well it’s just some negative space that makes you join up the lines in your head
When you look at an array of identical pictures you will be able to say there are 18 Dan Dennetts without your eyes scanning each picture, so your brain must be filling in some gaps (tested by making small alterations to one of the images)
Cover your right eye, stare at the dot on the right and move your head until the grey area covers your blind spot. Your brain will fill in the blind spot – but how? Is it creating new pebbles?
Layout of the optic nerves with cross-over Wiring of Human Brain
Press the right arrow on your keyboard and see if you can spot the difference between this image and the next
Did you notice the keyboard disappearing?
Split Brain Demonstration
The theory that consciousness occurs as discreet blobs in a linear dimension (time) linked together by memory
Perhaps there are many blobs that make up consciousness passing by like drops of rain
Candle Flame
This experiment shows that the readiness potential (a motor neurones getting ready to move the hand) occurs before the ‘conscious’ decision to move the hand is made
The sequence of ancestral species in the path towards human evolution
It is much better to consider a tree than a linear slice through it (previous image), so that you can see the interrelations between species both extant and extinct
The brain contains multiple cognitive specialisations that can run in parallel
At what point on this line would you attribute ‘sentience’ or consciousness to the object/plant/animal
Differentiating animals with different levels of intelligence
The Imitation Game
A Conscious Robot
Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment – a human can follow instructions like a computer, that tell him how to respond to a given input without ever understanding the nature of the inputs or outputs, as if they were in a foreign language
The idea that an added extra is required for a computer to be conscious
The Internet as a Living Creature
Which face is closer to you, the top left or bottom right?
Monkey in Logothetis’s Experiment
The spatial mapping of sense receptors in the brain
Stimuli used to test Blindsight
People with ‘blindsight’ (i.e. totally blind for most purposes) can still determine which way to post a letter through vertical or horizontal letterboxes
Super Blindseer
Puzzle: Turn this triangle of coins upside-down by moving just three coins
Solution
Puzzle: Using just two square boxes separate each of these animals so that they have their own space
Solution
Puzzle: Make this matchstick cow look in the opposite direction moving just two matches
Solution
Diagram of Terms used in Parapsychology
You can always find perceived similarities between almost any two images – such as the triangles and squares in the composition of these two
It’s easy to mistake objects, and when you’re paralysed because your body thinks you’re still asleep they can become terrifying
Hallucination of a Monster
Some people claim they can see other’s ‘auras’, this can be easily tested by placing a person around the corner from the aura-seeing person so that they should still be able to see some of the aura poking around the corner
What’s Real Anyway
Drug Experience
ASCs in Map
How drugs can change one’s philosophical outlook
Hobson’s AIM Model
The Hidden Observer
Perhaps you reconstruct your dreams from multiple possibilities just as you wake up
Fox’s Lucid Dreams
The Phantom Above the Physical
People claimed to see the souls of dying animals leave their bodies in a condensing chamber…
If people have OBEs where they really float around the world, rather than imagine it then they should be able to go and remember codes left for them to find in other people’s houses
May I have permission to republish your great “Ghost in the machine” cartoon in a book that I have written about the evolution of human motivations? I would give clear attribution.
Thanks for considering.
John
Thanks for your interest John, I normally ask for a fee for reproducing my images except for non-profit educational use, and some very small print-runs. Please do send me an email.
What is it?
May I have permission to republish your great “Ghost in the machine” cartoon in a book that I have written about the evolution of human motivations? I would give clear attribution.
Thanks for considering.
John
Thanks for your interest John, I normally ask for a fee for reproducing my images except for non-profit educational use, and some very small print-runs. Please do send me an email.