Author: Philip Goff

One sometimes hears popular science programmes claiming that the scientific revolution began when Galileo had the bright idea of finding out about the world by doing experiments. However, whilst Galileo was not the first person in history to perform an experiment, he was the first person in history to claim that the language of natural…

There are fundamentally two distinct approaches to solving the mind-body problem: a ‘Brain First’ approach, and a ‘Consciousness First’ approach. With the Brain First approach, we start from the idea that the brain is the thing we really understand, through neuroscience, and we try to squeeze consciousness into it. With the Consciousness First approach we…

In a recent speech Tony Blair argues that the fundamental ideological battle of our time is between Islamic fundamentalists and their democratic opponents: ‘…there is a Titanic struggle going on within the region between those who want the [Middle East] to embrace the modern world – politically, socially and economically – and those who instead…

I have recently found religion. Let me very quickly follow this up with a ‘negative creed’ of the things I don’t believe in the literal truth of: I don’t believe in a supernatural person. I don’t believe that the world was created in 6 days. I don’t believe in either the virgin birth or the…

In the public imagination, physics is well on its way to giving a complete description of the fundamental nature of reality. From the scientific revolution onwards, the development of a rigorous experimental method has allowed continuous progress in understanding the nature of space, time and matter. Of course there is a long way to go;…

We are living in nasty times. The welfare state, a mark of civilization, has come to be seen as a thing of shame. Thousands struggling to find employment, and many more topping up poverty wages with tax credits, are castigated as ‘scroungers’. But it would be naïve to suppose that nobody ever chooses to continue…

In this interview for ‘The Biggest Questions’ website, I try to give the essence of my views on consciousness. http://thebiggestquestions.org/questions-topics/what-is-mind-brain-and-consciousness/what-is-consciouness-dr-philip-goff-tony-sobrado/

In the first half of this parliament the Tories destroyed Labour’s fragile post-recession recovery with excessive cuts and flat-lined the economy for three years. As a result they did pretty well in the polls. Post the omni-shambles budget they’ve been consistently behind, but not by much. It had seemed clear that when the recovery finally…

The September/October edition of Philosophy Now has four more letters with interesting objections to my article ‘The Zombie Threat to a Science of Mind’ in the May/June edition (reprinted on this blog). I respond to these objections below. Bill Meacham, USA Bill argues that talk of zombies is meaningless. Most philosophers who argue for the incoherence…