What does it mean, exactly, for a given system to be a "neural correlate of consciousness"?

Although I'm Australian, I find myself much more in sympathy with the Austrian version!

There's certainly nothing original about the observation that conscious experience poses a hard problem.

Actually, I think my view is compatible with much of the work going on now in neuroscience and psychology, where people are studying the relationship of consciousness to neural and cognitive processes without really trying to reduce it to those processes.

Within psychology and neuroscience, some new and rigorous experimental paradigms for studying consciousness have helped it begin to overcome the stigma that has been attached to the topic for most of this century.

It probably helps that my background is in the sciences and I can speak the scientists' language.

Here, the broader issues are already familiar, and discussion has focused at a more sophisticated and detailed level. Within the philosophy of mind, the problem of consciousness is no big news.

People have managed to avert their eyes and hope for the best.

Sense data are much more controversial than qualia, because they are associated with a controversial theory of perception - that one perceives the world by perceiving one's sense-data, or something like that.

What does it mean, exactly, for a given system to be a "neural correlate of consciousness"?

Actually, I think most people accept the existence of qualia.

I think that consciousness has always been the most important topic in the philosophy of mind, and one of the most important topics in cognitive science as a whole, but it had been surprisingly neglected in recent years.

Anyway, there is a lot of really interesting work going on in the neuroscience and psychology of consciousness, and I would love to see philosophers become more closely involved with this.

I never expected this to catch on in the way it did! Of course similar observations have been made by any number of people, and the distinction is obvious to anyone who thinks about the subject a little.

Things are still in early stages, but one can imagine that as we build up and systematize our theories of these associations, and try to boil them down to their core, the result might point us toward the sort of fundamental principles I advocate.

Even when I was studying mathematics, physics, and computer science, it always seemed that the problem of consciousness was about the most interesting problem out there for science to come to grips with.

Because the idea of zombies seems to make sense, and seems to, in a certain sense, be possible, I think one can use that to argue against the thesis that everything is purely physical. Now many people, I think, agree that the idea of zombies are conceivable, including people who want to be physicalists.

I had the idea that it would be wonderful to be a physicist or a mathematician maybe 500 years ago around the time of Newton when there were really fundamental things just lying around to be discovered.

I think the existence of zombies would contradict certain laws of nature in our world. It seems to be a law of nature, in our world, that when you get a brain of a certain character you get consciousness going along with it.

My interests started about in science and in mathematics; I always thought I was going to be a mathematician.

Now I have to say I'm a complete atheist, I have no religious views myself and no spiritual views, except very watered down humanistic spiritual views, and consciousness is just a fact of life, it's a natural fact of life.

Studying consciousness tells us more about how the world is fundamentally strange. I think we have a few revolutions to go yet before we get to the bottom of it.

What does it mean, exactly, for a given system to be a 'neural correlate of consciousness'?

Nothing is more precious than being in the present moment. Fully alive, fully aware.

You have as much laughter as you have faith.

Baseball would be a quite remarkable activity if it was the one place in the world where your co-workers didn't have any impact on how productive you were. But in fact, baseball is a high-stress occupation, and those sort of stress-inducing activities... just have a huge impact on how the team functions, I think.

Any beast can cry over the misfortunes of its own child. It takes a mensch to weep for others children.

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

Music isn't only a profession.

Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy.

How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece of wood that wept and laughed like a child.

The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We should ask ourselves what it is that we find lovely in them - the visions of friendship, togetherness, repose, or whatever. And then consider what would actually help us find these qualities in our lives.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

Writing is largely about time, while visual art is largely about space.

I'm in a very unique position in that I got to participate in the Food Network by contest. That's long gone, being voted on, but I don't forget where it came from, and I don't forget the people who worked to put me here.

I'm not talented enough to drop everything and become somebody different.

Walmart is an amazing story of entrepreneurship and, as one of the world's most powerful brands, touches millions of lives every day.

People only see gymnastics on TV and in the Olympics at such an extreme. So it can be intimidating.

I dream, therefore I exist.

So give me a turbulent world as opposed to a quiet world and I'll take the turbulent one.

Reading the text of my blog itself is not really the interesting part. The exciting part is how the Internet allows me to be the eyes and ears for the people sending me postings from Africa.

When life gives you lemons, do NOT make lemonade. Lemonade is for losers. Make orange juice instead.

To be honest, I think I'd become a bit selfish with memories of my father. I wanted to hug them close to me.

When I was living in Los Angeles, I always booked a moisturizing milk-and-honey massage the day before flying to Spain. It was heaven - I never got dry plane skin or felt stiff from sitting in one position.

A supreme pragmatist, Kissinger was never interested in the art of the impossible - and nor, as a biographer, am I. That is why, having initially been invited to write his entire official biography, I eventually decided to devote myself to writing just one year in his life: 1973.

Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.

The more we deny that we have a dark side, the more power it has over us.