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Art & Science of Meditation
Consciousness
subsequent events are caused by prior events. The topic of free will is the philosophical and scientific examination of this conundrum.
Problem of other minds
Many philosophers consider experience to be the essence of consciousness, and believe that experience can only fully be known from the inside, subjectively. But if consciousness is subjective and not visible from the outside, why do the vast majority of people believe that other people are conscious, but rocks and trees are not? This is called the problem of other minds. It is particularly acute for people who believe in the possibility of philosophical zombies, that is, people who think it is possible in principle to have an entity that is physically indistinguishable from a human being and behaves like a human being in every way but nevertheless lacks consciousness.
Animal consciousness
The topic of animal consciousness is beset by a number of difficulties. It poses the problem of other minds in
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