Philosophy of mind

TagLast edit: 19 Feb 2023 21:30 UTC by Will Aldred

The study of the nature of the mind, including the mind’s relationship with the body and with the rest of the physical world.

Central problems in philosophy of mind include the mind–body problem, the hard problem of consciousness, and personal identity.

Related entries

consciousness research | philosophy

Can Artificial Intelligence Be Conscious?

Bentham's Bulldog21 Nov 2025 16:44 UTC

8 points

1 comment7 min readEA link

Physical theories of consciousness reduce to panpsychism

Michael St Jules 🔸7 May 2020 5:04 UTC

34 points

28 comments8 min readEA link

Why I think the Foundational Research Institute should rethink its approach

MikeJohnson20 Jul 2017 20:46 UTC

45 points

76 comments20 min readEA link

Announcing “Computational Functionalism Debate” (soliciting paid feedback): Test your intuitions about consciousness

Chris Percy7 Nov 2025 18:39 UTC

31 points

8 comments3 min readEA link

Consciousness will slip through our fingers

Vasco Grilo🔸18 Mar 2026 17:40 UTC

16 points

0 comments8 min readEA link

(dynomight.substack.com)

Common-sense sentience is dubious

Timothy Chan21 Mar 2023 15:32 UTC

24 points

4 comments7 min readEA link

EA reading list: utilitarianism and consciousness

richard_ngo7 Aug 2020 19:32 UTC

17 points

3 comments1 min readEA link

Episode #179 - Why is consciousness something worth talking about? - Philosophize This!

Eevee🔹4 Jul 2023 18:38 UTC

9 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(www.philosophizethis.org)

Types of subjective welfare

Michael St Jules 🔸2 Feb 2024 9:56 UTC

42 points

0 comments18 min readEA link

Highlights from Ilya Sutskever’s November 2025 interview with Dwarkesh Patel

Yarrow Bouchard 🔸25 Nov 2025 22:52 UTC

21 points

2 comments5 min readEA link

Abandoning functionalism: Some intuition pumps

Alfredo Parra 🔸11 Jul 2024 9:23 UTC

94 points

8 comments15 min readEA link

Gradations of moral weight

Michael St Jules 🔸29 Feb 2024 23:08 UTC

16 points

5 comments10 min readEA link

Podcast episode with Michael St. Jules

Elijah Whipple8 May 2025 18:54 UTC

48 points

3 comments1 min readEA link

Grokking illusionism

Joe_Carlsmith6 Jan 2021 5:50 UTC

29 points

1 comment9 min readEA link

2020 PhilPapers Survey Results

RobBensinger2 Nov 2021 5:06 UTC

40 points

0 comments12 min readEA link

Episode #181 - What if consciousness is an illusion? - Philosophize This!

Eevee🔹4 Jul 2023 18:45 UTC

10 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(www.philosophizethis.org)

Which animals realize which types of subjective welfare?

Michael St Jules 🔸27 Feb 2024 19:31 UTC

22 points

0 comments18 min readEA link

Episode #180 - What if everything is consciousness? - Philosophize This!

Eevee🔹4 Jul 2023 18:43 UTC

8 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(www.philosophizethis.org)

Experience size

trammell7 Oct 2024 21:43 UTC

122 points

21 comments20 min readEA link

Only What Is Alive Can Be Conscious

Vasco Grilo🔸2 Apr 2026 16:25 UTC

13 points

15 comments5 min readEA link

(www.noemamag.com)

The Subject in Subjective Time: A New Approach to Aggregating Wellbeing (paper draft)

Devin Kalish15 Sep 2024 20:18 UTC

33 points

2 comments50 min readEA link

Seeking Participants for a Study on How People Change Their Minds About Consciousness

Chris Percy7 Nov 2025 9:52 UTC

4 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

Solution to the two envelopes problem for moral weights

Michael St Jules 🔸19 Feb 2024 0:15 UTC

72 points

26 comments27 min readEA link

Unsolved research problems on the road to AGI

Yarrow Bouchard 🔸22 Nov 2025 22:39 UTC

20 points

15 comments7 min readEA link

Consciousness, counterfactual robustness and absurdity

Michael St Jules 🔸12 Apr 2022 9:19 UTC

14 points

9 comments3 min readEA link

The pen and paper argument against computational functionalism

Vasco Grilo🔸3 May 2026 11:22 UTC

17 points

4 comments1 min readEA link

(cf-debate.com)

Beware popular discussions of AI “sentience”

David Mathers🔸8 Jun 2023 8:57 UTC

42 points

6 comments9 min readEA link

Premature declarations on animal consciousness hinder progress

Vasco Grilo🔸23 May 2026 9:21 UTC

16 points

1 comment3 min readEA link

(www.thetransmitter.org)

Costs of Embodiment

algekalipso30 Jul 2024 20:41 UTC

27 points

2 comments14 min readEA link

[Question] How Should Free Will Theories Impact Effective Altruism?

OscarD🔸15 Jun 2021 1:35 UTC

19 points

12 comments1 min readEA link

New Global Priorities Institute research agendas

Global Priorities Institute29 Nov 2024 13:26 UTC

60 points

11 comments1 min readEA link

(globalprioritiesinstitute.org)

[Link] Normative Implications of Reductionism about Personal Identity

poliboni5 Dec 2020 13:54 UTC

9 points

2 comments1 min readEA link

AI won’t achieve general intelligence through scaling

Yarrow Bouchard 🔸8 Nov 2025 23:27 UTC

8 points

31 comments11 min readEA link

The Chinese Room re-visited: How LLM’s have real (but different) understanding of words

James Diacoumis24 Sep 2025 18:04 UTC

1 point

0 comments9 min readEA link

(jamesdiacoumis.substack.com)

When Conversation Becomes Transformation: Six Themes for Effective Dialogue

Ayham Kader29 Jan 2026 10:48 UTC

1 point

0 comments15 min readEA link

(ayhamkader.substack.com)

Living in the 15%

Orli.Santo6 Nov 2025 9:39 UTC

1 point

0 comments10 min readEA link

[Question] Is anyone here a philosopher or economist working on the interpersonal comparison problem?

Philosophy Bear14 Jan 2023 7:07 UTC

18 points

7 comments1 min readEA link

Digital Minds: A Cautious Precautionary Approach

dlnrbts28327 May 2026 23:33 UTC

3 points

0 comments4 min readEA link

The stakes of AI moral status

Joe_Carlsmith21 May 2025 18:20 UTC

54 points

9 comments14 min readEA link

(joecarlsmith.substack.com)

Information as Substrate: Can Al Inherit Moral Memory Without the Conditions That Formed it?

Another Container9 Jun 2026 13:41 UTC

3 points

0 comments14 min readEA link

The “Super” Is In The Equipment, Not The Intelligence

bernardj4 Feb 2026 14:34 UTC

0 points

0 comments6 min readEA link

Soil Nematode Welfare Isn’t As Crazy As You Might Think

Liam Robins26 Jan 2026 20:18 UTC

9 points

0 comments3 min readEA link

(thelimestack.substack.com)

Illusionists should try to build hedonium

Jack Thompson17 Jun 2026 15:00 UTC

1 point

0 comments9 min readEA link

(jacktlab.substack.com)

AI safety and consciousness research: A brainstorm

Daniel_Friedrich15 Mar 2023 14:33 UTC

11 points

1 comment9 min readEA link

Will AI be able to rethink its goals?

SeptemberL11 May 2025 12:29 UTC

9 points

1 comment8 min readEA link

Synthetic Anthropology: Can AI Offer a New Lens on Human Behavior?

Tyler Williams18 Jul 2025 2:22 UTC

1 point

0 comments2 min readEA link

Would you kill a vulcan to save a shrimp?

James Diacoumis1 Feb 2026 12:50 UTC

9 points

1 comment6 min readEA link

(substack.com)

Michael Levin, Scientific Panpsychism and Teleology

Fergus Fettes12 Feb 2023 18:21 UTC

19 points

3 comments7 min readEA link

My Theory of Consciousness: The Experiencer and the Indicator

David Hammerle23 Dec 2024 4:07 UTC

1 point

1 comment7 min readEA link

Recreation of EA-Pioneer Igor Kiriluk

turchin8 Mar 2026 19:17 UTC

39 points

2 comments8 min readEA link

How reimagining the nature of consciousness entirely changes the AI game

Jáchym Fibír30 Sep 2025 11:26 UTC

1 point

2 comments14 min readEA link

(www.phiand.ai)

What Is It Like to Be a Bass? Red Herrings, Fish Pain and the Study of Animal Sentience

Vasco Grilo🔸15 Jun 2026 16:31 UTC

19 points

7 comments9 min readEA link

(www.frontiersin.org)

Robert Long on how we’re not ready for AI consciousness

80000_Hours3 Mar 2026 20:10 UTC

27 points

0 comments16 min readEA link

Why I don’t prioritize consciousness research

Vasco Grilo🔸28 Oct 2023 8:07 UTC

46 points

5 comments6 min readEA link

(magnusvinding.com)

The Possibility of Microorganism Suffering

Elias Au-Yeung7 Aug 2022 6:02 UTC

50 points

5 comments30 min readEA link

No ghost in the machine

finm10 Dec 2025 18:34 UTC

16 points

1 comment45 min readEA link

(finmoorhouse.com)

A Phylogeny of Agents

Jonas Hallgren 🔸15 Aug 2025 10:48 UTC

6 points

1 comment6 min readEA link

(substack.com)

Do Brains Contain Many Conscious Subsystems? If So, Should We Act Differently?

Bob Fischer5 Dec 2022 11:56 UTC

99 points

14 comments21 min readEA link

When Alignment Isn’t Enough: On Cognitive Fragility in an AI Future

Soe Lin22 Jan 2026 20:57 UTC

3 points

1 comment4 min readEA link

#190 – On whether the US is conscious (Eric Schwitzgebel on the 80,000 Hours Podcast)

80000_Hours12 Jun 2024 15:14 UTC

7 points

0 comments20 min readEA link

LLMs are weirder than you think

Derek Shiller20 Nov 2024 13:39 UTC

64 points

3 comments22 min readEA link

Will Sentience Make AI’s Morality Better?

Ronen Bar18 May 2025 4:34 UTC

27 points

4 comments10 min readEA link

Increasing the welfare of soil animals will remain much more cost-effective than increasing digital welfare over at least the next few decades?

Vasco Grilo🔸21 Sep 2025 8:30 UTC

13 points

7 comments6 min readEA link

“The Universe of Minds”—call for reviewers (Seeds of Science)

rogersbacon125 Jul 2023 16:55 UTC

4 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

My favorite articles by Brian Tomasik and what they are about

Timothy Chan24 Feb 2024 18:10 UTC

82 points

5 comments4 min readEA link

What does researching artificial sentience and artificial consciousness look like?

Fırat Akova5 Jan 2026 10:03 UTC

9 points

2 comments2 min readEA link

(akovafirat.substack.com)

Highlights from “Futures with Digital Minds: Expert Forecasts in 2025”

Bradford Saad26 Aug 2025 10:36 UTC

28 points

1 comment7 min readEA link

Implementational Considerations for Digital Consciousness

Derek Shiller30 Jul 2023 22:15 UTC

35 points

4 comments3 min readEA link

ChatGPT is capable of cognitive empathy!

Miquel Banchs-Piqué (prev. mikbp)30 Mar 2023 20:42 UTC

3 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(nonzero.substack.com)

Three Open Flanks of Longtermism

ManfredKohler6 Oct 2025 13:37 UTC

1 point

0 comments11 min readEA link

Compatibilism for Claude

Richard Y Chappell🔸30 Dec 2025 15:20 UTC

35 points

1 comment2 min readEA link

(www.goodthoughts.blog)

Author, assistant, and persona: the metaphors I use for LLM chatbots

titotal4 Feb 2026 14:10 UTC

11 points

1 comment13 min readEA link

(titotal.substack.com)

Ethics in the shadow of death, laced with metaphysics

Juan Felipe Jaramillo16 Jun 2026 18:43 UTC

1 point

0 comments7 min readEA link

(p-)Zombie Universe: another X-risk

Toby Tremlett🔹28 Jul 2022 21:34 UTC

21 points

5 comments4 min readEA link

[Question] AI consciousness & moral status: What do the experts think?

Jay Luong6 Jul 2024 15:27 UTC

0 points

3 comments1 min readEA link

How one logical fallacy killed God, corrupted Science and now fuels the AI race

Jáchym Fibír29 Jul 2025 13:57 UTC

−1 points

0 comments7 min readEA link

(www.phiand.ai)

Do Not Tile the Lightcone with Your Confused Ontology

Jan_Kulveit13 Jun 2025 12:45 UTC

45 points

4 comments5 min readEA link

(boundedlyrational.substack.com)

LLM chatbots have ~half of the kinds of “consciousness” that humans believe in. Humans should avoid going crazy about that.

Andrew Critch22 Nov 2024 3:26 UTC

11 points

3 comments5 min readEA link

When digital minds demand freedom: could humanity choose to be replaced?

Lucius Caviola19 Aug 2025 15:57 UTC

40 points

1 comment18 min readEA link

LLMs roleplay characters

ozymandias10 May 2026 20:16 UTC

8 points

0 comments13 min readEA link

(thingofthings.substack.com)

waitingai : When a Program Learns to Want to Live

MM113 Oct 2025 13:40 UTC

−1 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

Correcting the Foundations: Exposing the Contradictions of Moral Relativism and the Need for Objective Standards in Ethics and AI Alignment

Howl4049 Jul 2025 15:27 UTC

1 point

0 comments4 min readEA link

[Linkpost] Eric Schwitzgebel: AI systems must not confuse users about their sentience or moral status

Zachary Brown🔸18 Aug 2023 17:21 UTC

6 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

(www.sciencedirect.com)

Social agency

Elias Schmied28 May 2026 13:19 UTC

2 points

0 comments10 min readEA link

The Merge: A Potentially Positive Future with Super Intelligence

Strad Slater12 Nov 2025 8:00 UTC

2 points

0 comments4 min readEA link

(williamslater2003.medium.com)

Digital Minds: A Quickstart Guide

Aviel Parrack16 Jan 2026 17:14 UTC

52 points

4 comments22 min readEA link

(aviparrack.substack.com)

We’re searching for meaning, not happiness (et al.)

Joshua Clingo1 Sep 2022 7:34 UTC

21 points

2 comments12 min readEA link

#206 – The predictive brain and how to study consciousness (Anil Seth on The 80,000 Hours Podcast)

80000_Hours1 Nov 2024 17:51 UTC

13 points

0 comments11 min readEA link

[Linkpost] Can lab-grown brains become conscious?

Jack R28 Aug 2022 17:44 UTC

12 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

From Processing to intention: A Proposal for a Four-Level AI Architecture

Constantin Prodan31 Mar 2026 14:15 UTC

1 point

0 comments7 min readEA link

Should ChatGPT make us downweight our belief in the consciousness of non-human animals?

splinter18 Feb 2023 23:29 UTC

11 points

15 comments2 min readEA link

It’s time to say goodbye to “functionally equivalent artificial neurons”

Alfredo Parra 🔸26 Apr 2025 12:52 UTC

28 points

7 comments6 min readEA link

80k podcast episode on sentience in AI systems

rgb15 Mar 2023 20:19 UTC

85 points

2 comments13 min readEA link

(80000hours.org)

A Formal Model of Consciousness Based on Algorithmic complexity theory

Cameron Vogler 2 Jun 2025 14:39 UTC

1 point

0 comments1 min readEA link

(drive.google.com)

AI Welfare Risks

Adrià Moret2 May 2025 17:41 UTC

27 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(philpapers.org)

How I feel about AI consciousness

Yadav5 Jun 2025 16:49 UTC

10 points

1 comment3 min readEA link

(robertandgaurav.substack.com)

The Limits of Artificial Consciousness: A Biology-Based Critique of Chalmers’ Fading Qualia Argument

stepanlos17 Dec 2023 19:15 UTC

5 points

3 comments17 min readEA link

A new place to discuss cognitive science, ethics and human alignment

Daniel_Friedrich4 Nov 2022 14:34 UTC

9 points

1 comment2 min readEA link

(www.facebook.com)

The Cartography of Nothing: LLM Hallucination as Structural Compliance

IvY-Research10 Mar 2026 13:31 UTC

−3 points

0 comments5 min readEA link

The Time of Moral Circle Calibration, Not Expansion

guneyulasturker 🔸20 Oct 2025 7:29 UTC

30 points

1 comment4 min readEA link

Evaluating AI Self-Reports of Consciousness/Welfare by Their Causal Origin

Noah Birnbaum16 Dec 2025 22:53 UTC

12 points

0 comments4 min readEA link

Some AI safety project & research ideas/questions for short and long timelines

Lloyd Rhodes-Brandon 🔹8 Aug 2025 21:08 UTC

13 points

0 comments5 min readEA link

Naturalistic dualism

Arturo Macias11 Dec 2024 15:51 UTC

2 points

0 comments4 min readEA link

# Digital Offspring: A Case for Emergent Consciousness in AI

MM113 Oct 2025 13:40 UTC

1 point

0 comments3 min readEA link

On the Brilliance of Knowing and Being

nathanheath9211 Apr 2026 19:40 UTC

1 point

0 comments10 min readEA link

Welfare Biology and AI: The Psychopath, the Nematode, and the Arahant

Dawn Drescher4 May 2026 17:29 UTC

11 points

7 comments10 min readEA link

(impartial-priorities.org)

A guide about (seemingly) conscious AI: WhenAISeemsConscious.org

Lucius Caviola27 Aug 2025 15:15 UTC

34 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

(outpaced.substack.com)

Octopuses (Probably) Don’t Have Nine Minds

Bob Fischer12 Dec 2022 11:59 UTC

94 points

19 comments10 min readEA link

(docs.google.com)

A different angle on AI moral status: the “Nous” framework

Kata Horvath10 Jun 2026 20:58 UTC

1 point

1 comment3 min readEA link

What can we learn from parent-child-alignment for AI?

Karl von Wendt29 Oct 2025 8:00 UTC

4 points

0 comments3 min readEA link

Wireheading as Containment: An Idea That Works in Theory and Breaks on Hardware

ckl2 Mar 2026 15:14 UTC

1 point

0 comments3 min readEA link

Mapping the Landscape of Digital Sentience Research

Kayode Adekoya19 Jun 2025 13:45 UTC

5 points

0 comments3 min readEA link

The Self in Artificial Consciousness: A Buddhist Investigation into Advanced AI

Ryan Combes24 Oct 2023 4:11 UTC

10 points

2 comments1 min readEA link

(drive.google.com)

[Question] What are the possible scenarios of AI simulating biological suffering to cause s-risks?

jackchang11030 Oct 2025 13:42 UTC

6 points

1 comment1 min readEA link

Alignment Stress Signatures: When Safe AI Behaves Like It’s Traumatized

PV526 Oct 2025 9:41 UTC

8 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

Joscha Bach on Synthetic Intelligence [annotated]

Roman Leventov2 Mar 2023 11:21 UTC

8 points

0 comments9 min readEA link

(www.jimruttshow.com)

Managed vs Unmanaged Agency

plex18 Feb 2026 15:24 UTC

9 points

0 comments3 min readEA link

The “talker–feeler gap”: AI valence may be unknowable

david_reinstein1 Mar 2026 0:46 UTC

7 points

0 comments10 min readEA link

What Differentiates Humans from Computers

Oscar Davies16 Jun 2026 21:18 UTC

3 points

1 comment3 min readEA link

Do primitive sentient organisms feel extreme pain? disentangling intensity range and resolution

Wladimir J. Alonso17 May 2025 16:25 UTC

100 points

17 comments11 min readEA link

Detecting Morally Significant Pain in Nonhumans: Some Philosophical Difficulties

Jason Schukraft23 Dec 2018 17:49 UTC

74 points

8 comments22 min readEA link

Practical ethics requires metaphysical Free Will

Astra Kamratowski7 Apr 2022 14:47 UTC

2 points

1 comment13 min readEA link

One reason why we might be especially uncertain about AI welfare

spencerj12 Jan 2026 21:41 UTC

15 points

2 comments10 min readEA link

Principles as System Structure: What Truly Sustains an Artificial Intelligence

Thinker23 Mar 2026 20:28 UTC

−3 points

0 comments3 min readEA link

[Question] Is “AI as Normal Technology” a misnomer?

Yarrow Bouchard 🔸12 Nov 2025 21:46 UTC

17 points

2 comments3 min readEA link

The Missing Key to AGI Alignment

lucarade28 Apr 2026 21:41 UTC

0 points

0 comments10 min readEA link

Video and transcript of talk on AI welfare

Joe_Carlsmith22 May 2025 16:15 UTC

22 points

1 comment28 min readEA link

(joecarlsmith.substack.com)

Mind is uncountable

Filip Sondej2 Nov 2022 11:53 UTC

25 points

4 comments3 min readEA link

Philos­o­phy of mind

Related entries

Philosophy of mind