Right now, the debate about consciousness often feels frozen between two entrenched positions. On one side sits computational functionalism, which treats cognition as something you can fully explain ...

What if our understanding of consciousness has been missing the point by trying to compare it to software? The debate on the origins of thought has long pitted two schools against each other. On one ...

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Theorists of consciousness generally focus on sensation – what it's like to, say, experience the color red. Yet what we call the stream of consciousness offers a much richer and more complex blend of ...

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Scientists still don’t know how the brain turns physical activity into thoughts, feelings, and awareness—but a powerful new tool may help crack the mystery. Researchers at MIT are exploring ...

Conscious experience is central to human life, yet the processes underlying its emergence remain among the most debated questions in behavioral ...

The science of consciousness has not lived up to expectations. Over the summer, the neuroscientist Christof Koch conceded defeat on his 25-year bet with the philosopher David Chalmers, a lost wager ...