| dc.contributor |
Hofstadter, Douglas R. |
|
| dc.creator |
Hurley, Matthew M. |
|
| dc.date |
2018-09-28T17:46:45Z |
|
| dc.date |
2018-09-28T17:46:45Z |
|
| dc.date |
2018-09 |
|
| dc.date.accessioned |
2023-02-21T11:21:21Z |
|
| dc.date.available |
2023-02-21T11:21:21Z |
|
| dc.identifier |
http://hdl.handle.net/2022/22453 |
|
| dc.identifier.uri |
http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/253144 |
|
| dc.description |
Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Cognitive Science Program, 2018 |
|
| dc.description |
In this work I pull together many long-explored ideas on agency, vitality, function, and goal-directedness in an attempt to explain how the subjective properties of our world arise from its objective constituents. The main ingredients of my theory are: (1) a distinction between comparative and evaluative norms, aimed at dividing the philosophical notion of normativity into two separate problems; (2) a view of life and vitality as a form of resistance to material disorder (in contrast to Schrödinger, who saw them as a form of resistance to energetic disorder); (3) the idea that although no organizational pattern in the world has an intrinsic function, certain organizational patterns in the world do possess intrinsic goal-directedness; (4) a new mathematical characterization of the metaphysical notions of identity and value; (5) a set of distinctions, based on my new view of identity and value, that allows different kinds of orderliness in the world to be classified; and finally and most importantly, (6) a theory of teleology, rooted in all these ideas, which I believe can underpin an eventual science of the subjective. |
|
| dc.language |
en |
|
| dc.publisher |
[Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University |
|
| dc.subject |
purpose |
|
| dc.subject |
life |
|
| dc.subject |
vitality |
|
| dc.subject |
agency |
|
| dc.subject |
subjectivity |
|
| dc.subject |
teleology |
|
| dc.title |
Molecules, Microbes, Minds, and Machines: Towards a Science of the Subjective |
|
| dc.type |
Doctoral Dissertation |
|