ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in preceding chapters of this book. The book focuses on the mind-body problem, the problem of clarifying and understanding how the minds are related to, or grounded in, the bodily nature. Materialism, or its contemporary successor, physicals, is the default position in modern science and much of contemporary philosophy of mind. The core of the mind-body problem is the consciousness-brain problem. The book examines a cluster of issues concerning consciousness, the mind-body problem, and physicals. If physicals are true and consciousness is real, there must be such an accommodation; consciousness must have a well-defined place in the physical world. On this view of consciousness as direct awareness of internal states, consciousness would be supervening on the basic physical-biological structure and functioning of the organism. In that sense, consciousness as special first-person epistemic authority may well be supervening on physical and biological facts.
