Paul Thagard Ph.D.

About

Paul Thagard, Ph.D., is a Canadian philosopher and cognitive scientist. His latest book, published by Oxford University Press, is Dreams, Jokes, and Songs: How Brains Build Consciousness.

Books by Paul Thagard Ph.D.
Recent Posts
Why AI Doesn’t Care About You
People are looking to AI for friendship, therapy, and even love. But AI models are incapable of having emotions because they lack the bodies that contribute to human feelings.
Could AI Have Maternal Instincts?
Hinton’s suggestion to control AI by giving it maternal instincts is implausible because computer systems lack the required chemical, physiological, and neural mechanisms.
What Makes Jokes Funny?
Jokes are funny because they tap into the brain mechanisms of neural representation, binding, coherence, and competition. Coherence shifts are both cognitive and emotional.
The Seven Sins of Philosophy

Philosophy is indispensable for intellecutal progress but needs to avoid the seven sins of dogmatism, arrogance, obscurity, isolation, irrelevance, narrowness, and nihilism.

Philosophy is indispensable for intellecutal progress but needs to avoid the seven sins of dogmatism, arrogance, obscurity, isolation, irrelevance, narrowness, and nihilism.

What Is Desire?

Desires are brain processes in line with the NBC theory that consciousness results from neural representations, binding, coherence, and competition.

Desires are brain processes in line with the NBC theory that consciousness results from neural representations, binding, coherence, and competition.

Is the New Panpsychism As Bad As the Old?

Panprotopsychism claims that the fundamental building blocks of reality have properties that are the precursors to consciousness. It has all the problems of panpsychism.

Panprotopsychism claims that the fundamental building blocks of reality have properties that are the precursors to consciousness. It has all the problems of panpsychism.

Emotions in Anti-Breakup Songs

The emotions in popular songs that resist breakups include hope, nostalgia, love, regret, and fear of loss.

The emotions in popular songs that resist breakups include hope, nostalgia, love, regret, and fear of loss.

The Mind-Body Problem—A New Solution

Coherent materialism claims that thinking in the real world requires couplings of software and hardware that satisfy constraints of time, space, energy, and history.

Coherent materialism claims that thinking in the real world requires couplings of software and hardware that satisfy constraints of time, space, energy, and history.

Why Ozempic Beats Free Will

Ozempic and similar drugs are often effective because they produce feelings of satisfaction, in line with the NBC theory of consciousness.

Ozempic and similar drugs are often effective because they produce feelings of satisfaction, in line with the NBC theory of consciousness.

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