There are hundreds of coherent theories attempting to explain the origins of experience. Consciousness is the ultimate question of existence. Nothing is more essential than our experience. Yet we have no consensus, and perhaps no clue, about what it actually is. The trouble, in part, is that experts usually become invested in one theory, blinding themselves to alternative explanations that could aid progress. Instead, I embrace the diversity of consciousness theories across science, philosophy and religion - so long as they are built on clear arguments.

This paper aims to show that a simple framework, utilizing basic formalisms from set theory and category theory, can clarify and inform our theories of the relation between mind and matter. I've found that theories of the mind-body relationship tend to cause three core difficulties in my understanding: 1. I'm usually left with a fuzzy picture of the relationship the author is trying to illustrate. When in some cases it does appear to clarify itself, I find myself later questioning whether the image I hold is actually the one intended. This paper aims to make some progress against these issues by introducing a framework for clearly expressing the ideas behind theories of the mind-matter relationship. It consists of three parts. In order to work with these theories on equal conceptual grounds, we require a common philosophical foundation that allows the different theories to be engaged with on the same terms. To address this need, the first part of the paper outlines a conservative philosophical approach that gives us these equal terms without presupposing theoretical categories and relationships that the theories themselves deal with. In the second part, we lay down formal descriptions of several specific theories (e.g. With each system resting on equal footing, we can compare relationships between theories and pick out conceptual issues within them.

Since 1980, the temperature of the planet has risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius, resulting in unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the acidification of oceans. In 2015, 175 million more people were exposed to heat waves compared with the average for 1986 to 2008, and the number of weather-related disasters from 2007 to 2016 was up by 46 percent compared with the average from 1990 to 1999. This is nothing in comparison to the horrors that await us as temperatures continue to rise. According to recent projections, global temperatures are set to increase by 3.2 degrees by the end of century. This will lock in sea level rises that will mean that the cities, towns, and villages currently occupied by 175 million people--including Hong Kong and Miami--will eventually be underwater. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that warming is largely caused by the actions of human beings.

If so, it'd be inevitable that AI -- designed by our intelligence but built on a better platform than biochemistry -- would exceed human capabilities that arise by chance. In fact, in a purely physical world, fully-realized AI should be recognized as the appropriate outcome of natural selection; we humans should benefit from it while we can. Full AI – that is, artificial intelligence capable of matching and perhaps exceeding the human mind -- cannot be achieved unless we discover, via material means, the basis for the existence of immaterial minds, and then learn how to confer that on machines. Anyone with a decent understanding of physics, computer science and the human mind ought to be able to know this, especially those most concerned about AI's possibilities.

Elon Musk famously equated Artifical Intelligence with "summoning the demon" and sounds the alarm that AI is advancing faster than anyone realizes, posing an existential threat to humanity. Stephen Hawking has warned that AI could take off and leave the human race, limited by evolution's slow pace, in the dust. Bill Gates counts himself in the camp concerned about super intelligence. And, although Mark Zuckerburg is dismissive about AI's potential threat, Facebook recently shut down an AI engine after reportedly discovering that it had created a new language humans can't understand. Concerns about AI are entirely logical if all that exists is physical matter.

Elon Musk famously equated Artifical Intelligence with "summoning the demon" and sounds the alarm that AI is advancing faster than anyone realizes, posing an existential threat to humanity. Stephen Hawking has warned that AI could take off and leave the human race, limited by evolution's slow pace, in the dust. Bill Gates counts himself in the camp concerned about super intelligence. And, although Mark Zuckerburg is dismissive about AI's potential threat, Facebook recently shut down an AI engine after reportedly discovering that it had created a new language humans can't understand. Concerns about AI are entirely logical if all that exists is physical matter.

The question of whether a god exists is heating up in the 21st century. In 2014, the proportion of the US who didn't believe in God was 33 per cent while in the UK it was 39 per cent. Despite this growing disbelief in a higher being, in a new article for The Conversation, Robert Nelson, a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland explores why he believes that God exists. The question of whether a god exists is heating up in the 21st century. In 2014, the proportion of the UK who said they didn't believe in God was 39 per cent, while it was 33 per cent of people in the US (stock image) In 1960 the Princeton physicist – and subsequent Nobel Prize winner – Eugene Wigner raised a fundamental question: Why did the natural world always – so far as we know – obey laws of mathematics?

Most people would agree that we, generally, have two "dimensions" to us. That is, an immaterial dimension where our mental states and thought occurs, and a material dimension in which we possess a physical body. Lee Sedol is a perfect example, in that we see him execute actions on and interact with the Go board physically using strategies/plans developed in his mind. René Descartes would agree with this sentiment because he was a dualist, and believed that the mind and body are two equally real substances that causally affect each other in a rendition denoted "Cartesian dualism". The difference between the two substances is that the mind is a private mode of thought extended in an intangible realm, whereas the body is public and subject to the laws of the physical realm.