Evan Thompson
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Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.
Individuals and organizations often turn to counterfactual questions for actionable insight. The answers provided to such questions can have important consequences, therefore it is critical to examine their reliability. In this dissertation, I demonstrate that examining the reliability of these answers forces us to closely evaluate the choices and assumptions that are embedded in the lifecycle of a counterfactual query -- from its construction to its application. I argue that such an evaluation must proceed in a context-sensitive manner, as it must take into account the intended aim of pursuing counterfactual questions, and also the context wherein the answers to such questions will be used. I highlight the different manners in which our choices and assumptions shape the epistemic and ethical reliability of the answers we provide to counterfactual queries by examining three case studies: (1) the selectivity of imagination-driven counterfactual thought; (2) the use of agent-based models for simulating counterfactuals, specifically in the context of investigating the potential impact of diversity on group performance; and (3) the use of machine learning models for answering counterfactual queries, and the use of counterfactual metrics for assessing the ethical reliability of those models. I argue that making choices and assumptions is inevitable, and that the reliability of our dealings with possibilities depends on being transparent about the influence of these assumptions and choices. Such transparency enhances the epistemic quality of the endeavour wherein counterfactuals are put to use by allowing us to explicitly evaluate when a given choice is justified and why. It also improves our capability to formulate informed mitigation strategies in the face of epistemic and ethical complications.
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Publications
- Emergent Properties and Connectionism (2018)
The MIT Press, - Enaction: Embodied Cognition (2018)
The MIT Press, - Evolutionary Path Making and Natural Drift (2018)
The MIT Press, - Laying Down a Path in Walking (2018)
The MIT Press, - Selfless Minds (2018)
The MIT Press, - Symbols: The Cognitivist Hypothesis (2018)
The MIT Press, - The Cartesian Anxiety (2018)
The MIT Press, - The Embodied Mind (2018)
The MIT Press, - The I of the Storm (2018)
The MIT Press, - The Middle Way (2018)
The MIT Press, - What Do We Mean “Human Experience”? (2018)
The MIT Press, - Affect-Biased Attention as Emotion Regulation (2017)
- Buddhism and Cognitive Science: How Can the Dialogue Move Forward? (2017)
- Contemplative Neuroscience as an Approach to Volitional Consciousness (2017)
- Death: The Ultimate Transformative Experience (2017)
- Developing Attention and Decreasing Affective Bias: Toward a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science of Mindfulness (2017)
- Embodiment or Envatment: Reflections on the Bodily Basis of Consciousness (2017)
- Enaction Without Hagiography (2017)
- From the Five Aggregates to Phenomenal Consciousness (2017)
Buddhist Philosophy, , 165--187 - From the Five Aggregates to Phenomenal Consciousness: Toward a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science (2017)
- Hypnosis and Meditation: A Neurophenomenological Comparison (2017)
- Looping Effects and the Cognitive Science of Mindfulness Meditation (2017)
Oxford Scholarship Online, - Making Sense of Sense-Making: Reflections on Enactive and Extended Mind Theories (2017)
- Meditation Experience Predicts Introspective Accuracy (2017)
PLoS ONE, 7 (9), e45370 - Mountains and Valleys: Binocular Rivalry and the Flow of Experience (2017)
- Neurophenomenology and Contemplative Experience (2017)
Oxford Handbooks Online, - Précis of Waking, Dreaming, Being, and Response to Commentators (2017)
- Primates, Monks and the Mind: The Case of Empathy (2017)
- Sellarsian Buddhism: Comments on Jay Garfield, Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy (2017)
- Sensorimotor Subjectivity and the Enactive Approach to Experience (2017)
- Specifying the Self for Cognitive Neuroscience (2017)
- The Enactive Approach (2017)
The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition, - The Philosophy of Mind-Wandering (2017)
- Witnessing from Here: Self-Awareness from a Bodily Versus Embodied Perspective (2017)
- Introduction to Symposium on Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy by Evan Thompson (2016)
Philosophy East and West, 66 (3), 923--926 - Living Ways of Sense Making (2016)
Funktionen des Lebendigen, 55 (9999), 114--123 - Précis of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy (2016)
Philosophy East and West, 66 (3), 927--933 - Response to Commentators on Waking, Dreaming, Being (2016)
Philosophy East and West, 66 (3), 982--1000 - Searching for affect: From William James to neurophenomenology. (2015)
Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2 (1), 19--23 - Strengthening emotion-cognition integration (2015)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38 - Own-Body Perception (2014)
Oxford Handbooks Online, - Waking, Dreaming, Being (2014)
- Philosophy: Life emergent (2011)
Nature, 480 (7377), 318--318 - Witnessing from Here: (2011)
Oxford Handbooks Online, - Introduction (2010)
Self, No Self?, , 1--26 - Self‐No‐Self ? Memory and Reflexive Awareness (2010)
Self, No Self?, , 157--175 - Self, No Self? (2010)
- Life and Mind (2009)
Emergence and Embodiment, , 77--93 - Il corpo e il vissuto affettivo: verso un approccio «enattivo» allo studio delle emozioni (2008)
Rivista di estetica, (37), 77--96 - Representationalism and the phenomenology of mental imagery (2007)
Synthese, 160 (3), 397--415 - The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (2007)
- Look again: Phenomenology and mental imagery (2006)
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6 (1-2), 137--170 - Empathy and Human Experience (2005)
Science, Religion, and the Human Experience, , 261--286 - Enacting emotional interpretations with feeling (2005)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28 (02) - Neural synchrony and the unity of mind: a neurophenomenological perspective (2003)
The Unity of ConsciousnessBinding, Integration, and Dissociation, , 266--287 - Francisco J. Varela (1946–2001) (2001)
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5 (8), 368 - Finding out about filling-in: A guide to perceptual completion for visual science and the philosophy of perception (1998)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21 (06) - Symbol Grounding: A Bridge from Artificial Life to Artificial Intelligence (1997)
Brain and Cognition, 34 (1), 48--71 - Colour vision, evolution, and perceptual content (1995)
Synthese, 104 (1), 1--32 - Sensory Qualities. (1995)
The Philosophical Review, 104 (1), 130 - COLOUR VISION (1994)
- Language, thought and consciousness in the modern mind (1993)
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16 (04), 770 - Novel colours (1992)
Philosophical Studies, 68 (3), 321--349 - Color vision: A case study in the Foundations of Cognitive Science (1990)
Revue de Synthèse, 111 (1-2), 129--138
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