135. Paul Thagard | How Brains Build Consciousness

If you'd like to support the series and get early access (plus other perks), you can join on Patreon or become a paid Substack subscriber:   / friction   https://fric.substack.com/subscribe My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy. Paul Thagard is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Association for Psychological Science. His work focuses on cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science and medicine. Check out his recent book, "Dreams, Jokes, and Songs: How Brains Build Consciousness"! https://academic.oup.com/book/60618 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FHQJ3KCS/ 00:00 - Preview 00:35 - Introduction 01:26 - Overview of book 05:32 - Qualia 08:47 - Illusionism 12:28 - Neural representation 15:33 - Representation 18:49 - Binding 23:15 - Coherence 27:33 - Emotions 29:24 - Competition 31:53 - Getting consciousness 38:48 - Emergence 41:02 - Additional mechanisms 43:25 - Correlates vs. identity 48:35 - Explanatory breadth 51:28 - Dreams 56:34 - Global workspace theory 59:02 - Other approaches 1:02:21 - Animal consciousness 1:06:16 - Vagueness 1:09:12 - Functionalism and AI 1:16:49 - Coherent materialism 1:19:12 - Thought experiments 1:23:05 - Mary's room 1:25:57 - Future research 1:28:32 - Value of philosophy 1:30:36 - Conclusion