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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 1, 2025

Quantifying Infra-slow Dynamics of Spectral Power and Heart Rate in Sleeping Mice

Quantifying Infra-slow Dynamics of Spectral Power and Heart Rate in Sleeping Mice

Published on: August 2, 2017

Laying ghosts to rest.

Donnchadh O'Conaill¹

¹Département de Philosophie, Univeristé de Fribourg, Av. de l'Europe 20, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.

Philosophical Studies

|March 7, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The conceivability of ghosts, entities defined solely by consciousness, challenges physicalism. While ghosts are conceivable, this does not necessarily prove their metaphysical possibility, offering a nuanced view on consciousness and physicalism.

Keywords:

Conceivability Consciousness Ghosts Physicalism Possibility

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Area of Science:

Philosophy of Mind
Metaphysics
Consciousness Studies

Background:

Physicalism faces challenges from arguments based on conceivability, such as the zombie argument.
Philip Goff has proposed anti-physicalist arguments utilizing the conceivability of 'ghosts'—entities whose existence is solely consciousness.

Purpose of the Study:

To evaluate the conceivability of ghosts and its implications for physicalism.
To determine if the conceivability of ghosts provides a reliable basis for arguing against physicalism, both a priori and a posteriori.

Main Methods:

Analysis of arguments concerning the conceivability of ghosts.
Drawing on existing work on conceivability and its relation to possibility (Kung, O'Conaill).
Examination of how the ability to stipulate conditions in conceivability scenarios affects the inference to metaphysical possibility.

Main Results:

Ghosts are indeed conceivable.
The cognitive mechanisms enabling the conception of ghosts (stipulation) do not guarantee their metaphysical possibility.
The conceivability of ghosts undermines its reliability as a guide to possibility.

Conclusions:

While the conceivability of ghosts challenges a priori physicalism, it does not necessarily refute a posteriori physicalism.
The argument suggests that physicalists, particularly a posteriori physicalists, need not be concerned by the ghost argument.