Research

Philosophy of mind

What is perceptual experience like? How is conscious experience related to information processing in the brain? I work on conceptual problems concerning perception, consciousness and the self.

Philosophy of cognitive science

I examine what theories in cognitive science and neuroscience reveal about the mind, and what they miss. Recently I have drawn mainly on predictive processing and the free energy principle to think about the relations among brain, body and environment, and about how experience and action come about.

Applied ethics

I consider questions about the moral significance of consciousness that arise from advances in neuroscience and the life sciences, starting with neural organoid research.

Current interests

Can the free energy principle become a theory that understands life and mind within a common framework? I am interested in examining its explanatory power and its limits philosophically, in light of empirical findings.

My other current interest is generative AI. Do large language models understand language? Could they have minds or consciousness? How does thinking and writing alongside generative AI change human thought? I approach these as questions in the philosophy of mind and as questions arising in the classroom. My teaching practice is described on the Teaching page.

Keywords

• Philosophy and ethics
• Philosophy of mind
• Perception and consciousness
• Predictive processing
• Free energy principle
• Philosophy of cognitive science
• Neuroethics
• Philosophy of generative AI