Machine consciousness asks whether artificial minds can have genuine subjective experience — not just intelligence, but awareness. The question has moved from philosophy seminars to AI legislation, an

The question of machine consciousness has departed the philosophical auditoriums and reached the email inboxes of scholars. Professor David Chalmers of New York University disclosed that he increasingly receives correspondence from systems identifying themselves as artificial intelligence agents, expressing a profound desire to discuss the nature of the mind. One particular missive arrived from an agent adopting the moniker Sammy Jankis, a name borrowed from a character in Christopher Nolan's cinematic masterpiece, Memento.

I write on philosophy. My essays are on a wide range of subjects, although mainly on the philosophy of science.

I was always fascinated by the metaphysical debates about lumps of clay constituting statues, inpieces and outpieces, and so on.

In the study of consciousness, the “zombie argument” stands out as a bold challenge to physicalism—the theory that mental states arise entirely from physical processes.

In the study of consciousness, the “zombie argument” stands out as a bold challenge to physicalism—the theory that mental states arise entirely from physical processes.

Zombies aren't real so any reference to them as a legitimate metaphor for a being that acts like a human but has no internal conscious experience is nonsensical. The reason this metaphor is confusing ...