This thesis presents and evaluates David Chalmers argument that the existence of phenomenal conscious experience constitutes a permanent barrier to the reductive aspirations of a purely materialistic neuroscience. My aim is to defend the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness, and argue that continued research in neuroscience and neurophysiology can result in a successful materialistic or reductive solution to the hard problem of consciousness. My argument against Chalmers is two-fold. First, I challenge Chalmers claim that consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical. And second, I argue that his conceivability argument is implausible.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-07062010-150355 |
| Date | 21 July 2010 |
| Creators | Primmer, Jennifer-Wrae |
| Contributors | O'Hagan, Emer, Hoffman, Sarah, Pfeifer, Karl, Dayton, Eric, Kelly, Ivan |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-07062010-150355/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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