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Paul M. Churchland
Also known as: Paul M. Churchland, Paul Churchland, P. M. Churchland
Facts (10)
Sources
Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness - David Chalmers consc.net 3 facts
claimPaul Churchland (1996) imagines a nineteenth-century philosopher worrying about a "hard problem" of light, and Patricia Churchland uses an analogy involving heat to argue against the "hard problem" of consciousness.
claimPaul Churchland's arguments regarding luminescence rely on intuitions about the conscious experience of light, specifically appealing to the 'visibility' of light, the 'visual point of view', the 'knowledge argument' (blind Mary), and the 'zombie' argument (a universe physically identical to ours but dark).
referenceIn his 1996 article 'The Rediscovery of Light', Paul Churchland suggests that antireductionist arguments similar to those used for consciousness could have been constructed for the phenomenon of luminescence.
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2025 ... plato.stanford.edu Jun 18, 2004 2 facts
claimAusten Clark (1993) and Paul M. Churchland (1995) argue that formal understandings of qualitative spaces are important for understanding qualitative properties in general, even if color is currently the only well-developed example.
perspectiveOptimistic physicalists, such as Daniel Dennett (1991), John Searle (1992), and P. M. Churchland (1995), view current explanatory lapses regarding consciousness as temporary reflections of an early stage of inquiry that will be remedied in the future.
Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 2 facts
claimPatricia Churchland and Paul Churchland have applied eliminative materialism to propositional attitudes, while Daniel Dennett, Georges Rey, and Keith Frankish have applied it to qualia or phenomenal consciousness.
claimThinkers who subscribe to type-A materialism include Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Keith Frankish, and Thomas Metzinger.
Not Minds, but Signs: Reframing LLMs through Semiotics - arXiv arxiv.org Jul 1, 2025 1 fact
referencePaul Churchland's 1989 book 'A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science' discusses the intersection of neuroscience and the philosophy of mind.
Hard Problem of Consciousness | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 1 fact
referencePaul M. Churchland argued in 1981 that entities posited by a theory stand or fall with the success of that theory, and if the theory is falsified, the entities it posits do not exist.
The Conscious Mind - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
claimPatricia and Paul Churchland criticized David Chalmers' claim that everything except consciousness logically supervenes on the physical, arguing that this failure of supervenience does not necessarily mean materialism is false, citing heat and luminescence as physical properties that do logically supervene on the physical.