This programmatic paper explores structural parallels in how consciousness and quantum mechanics challenge the traditional objectivist worldview of science and maps out possible responses. (We are not claiming the explanation of consciousness comes from QM or vice versa.) arxiv.org/pdf/2604.14234

This programmatic paper explores structural parallels in how consciousness and quantum mechanics challenge the traditional objectivist worldview of science and maps out possible responses. (We are not claiming the explanation of consciousness comes from QM or vice versa.) arxiv.org/pdf/2604.14234

How can a group make coherent and reliable judgments on complex issues, where these may be not just yes/no issues (e.g. guilty/not guilty in a jury) but non-binary variables (e.g. economic or climate variables)? This paper investigates this judgment-aggregation problem. @royalsocietypublishing.org

Peter with HOPWAG volumes

HoPWaG Volume 8, on Philosophy in the Reformation, is out! Here it is with its happy author.

You can get it from Oxford University Press:

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

#philsky #philosophy#hopwag #reformation

Great initiative, Keith! Happy to be included too.

Now published: a seven-pronged no-go result for quantum mechanics (QM). Seven classically accepted theses about physical reality are jointly inconsistent with QM. Any six are consistent. Different interpretations of QM can be classified in terms of which theses they give up and which they retain.

Now published: a seven-pronged no-go result for quantum mechanics (QM). Seven classically accepted theses about physical reality are jointly inconsistent with QM. Any six are consistent. Different interpretations of QM can be classified in terms of which theses they give up and which they retain.

Thanks! Yes, let's speak more some time -- will be in touch.

Free Will Is Real Philosopher Christian List argues against reductionism and determinism in accounts of the mind

I think free will requires three things: 1. intentional agency, 2. alternative possibilities for choice, 3. causal control over one's actions. Resource-constrained agents can and do routinely satisfy these conditions, as exemplified by the human case. Here I discuss my broader views on free will.

Stefan Rahmstorf Q&A: The Atlantic Ocean tipping point YouTube video by Earth System Analysis - Potsdam Institute

The fabulous Howtown team has asked me the stuff you want & need to know about the risk of crossing the Atlantic ocean circulation #AMOC tipping point!
Check out the Q&A here ⬇️.
youtu.be/RvZOU7aKjDM?...

Just finished listening to this really wonderful talk. @clist.bsky.social gives an extremely cogent and down to earth discussion of #freewill leading to the plausibility that artificial agents can have it. I would even say, AI free will is inevitable.

Can AI systems have free will? - Synthese While there has been much discussion of whether AI systems could function as moral agents or acquire sentience, there has been very little discussion of whether AI systems could have free will. I sket...

Relevant background papers are here: doi.org/10.1080/0020... (on free will in group agents) and doi.org/10.1007/s112... (on free will in AI).

Can artificial agents have free will? Here is a framework for thinking about this question. I discuss two kinds of artificial agents: group agents (e.g., corporations, states etc.) and AI systems (e.g., LLMs, autonomous decision-making systems etc.). Both raise important questions of responsibility.

I am extremely proud of what Camilo, Moritz, and the whole team have put together for this year's Models of Consciousness #MoC7.

Stellar choice of topics and speakers, and an amazing social programme aimed at true exchange among participants.

Come join us! #ConSci Talk application is now open.

Here is a social-choice-theoretic critique of the notion of "the will of the people". The talk revisits William Riker's critique of populism (from his 1982 book Liberalism against Populism) and develops it further. At first sight, Riker's book may look dated, but the topic has become timely again.

Here is a social-choice-theoretic critique of the notion of "the will of the people". The talk revisits William Riker's critique of populism (from his 1982 book Liberalism against Populism) and develops it further. At first sight, Riker's book may look dated, but the topic has become timely again.

Consciousness reveals there's no single objective world <p><em>Does reality contain only physical things? Or could everything be conscious, as panpsychists claim? Philosopher Christian List argues it’s time to move beyond both sides of this debate. Conscio...

The statement illustrates that a purely objective and impersonal account of reality (which we find in ordinary science and functionalist philosophy of mind) cannot properly accommodate phenomenal consciousness. Consciousness involves irreducibly first-personal facts. Here is a summary of my view.

Personally, I am particularly interested in the escape routes from the heptalemma that relax one of the four theses that jointly entail the original realism thesis in Bell's theorem, namely measurement realism, non-relationalism, non-fragmentation, and one world. But the paper is officially neutral.

If we consider the rejection of measurement independence, I can see the argument that the retrocausal route has some advantages over the superdeterministic route, as it allows the observers' measurement settings to remain exogenous, albeit at the "cost" of reversing the relevant causal direction.

In this paper, we just taxonomize the different possible escape routes from the heptalemma without endorsing one of them. We assume that every such route, by rejecting one of seven initially plausible theses, involves some cost. It is then a matter of judgment which route is least costly on balance.

Updated: "A Heptalemma for Quantum Mechanics" (with John DeBrota). We present a no-go result: seven initially plausible theses about physical reality are jointly inconsistent with the predictions of QM, while any six are jointly consistent. The upshot is a novel taxonomy of interpretations of QM.

Consciousness reveals there's no single objective world <p><em>Does reality contain only physical things? Or could everything be conscious, as panpsychists claim? Philosopher Christian List argues it’s time to move beyond both sides of this debate. Conscio...

The manuscript of my @iai.tv opinion piece on why science as we know it can't explain consciousness is now also on Philpapers at: philpapers.org/archive/LISW...

Consciousness reveals there's no single objective world <p><em>Does reality contain only physical things? Or could everything be conscious, as panpsychists claim? Philosopher Christian List argues it’s time to move beyond both sides of this debate. Conscio...

The manuscript of my @iai.tv opinion piece on why science as we know it can't explain consciousness is now also on Philpapers at: philpapers.org/archive/LISW...

Robert E. Goodin & Christian List, A conditional defense of plurality rule: generalizing May's theorem in a restricted informational environment - PhilPapers May's theorem famously shows that, in social decisions between two options, simple majority rule uniquely satisfies four appealing conditions. Although this result is often cited in support of majorit...

Another older paper presents an axiomatic characterization of plurality rule, generalizing May's theorem about majority voting. Interestingly, if the balloting format allows each voter to vote for more than one candidate, then approval voting, not plurality-rule, is supported by similar conditions.

John Dryzek & Christian List, Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation - PhilPapers The two most influential traditions of contemporary theorizing about democracy, social choice theory and deliberative democracy, are generally thought to be at loggerheads, in that the former demonstr...

And a second older paper: philpapers.org/rec/LISSCT-2.

Christian List, What’s Wrong with the Consequence Argument: A Compatibilist Libertarian Response - PhilPapers The most prominent argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism is Peter van Inwagen’s consequence argument. I offer a new diagnosis of what is wrong with this argument. Proponents .....

I'll be uploading on Philpapers the preprints/manuscripts of some older papers, for continuing green open access, beginning with this one: philpapers.org/rec/LISXWW

New on the Archive:

DeBrota, John B. and List, Christian (2026) A Heptalemma for Quantum Mechanics. [Preprint]

https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/27977/

Newly published: "Interview with Christian List", in Catherine Herfeld (@cherfeld.bsky.social), Conversations on Rational Choice, @universitypress.cambridge.org, 2025, philpapers.org/archive/LISI...

Conversations on Rational Choice Cambridge Core - Economic Thought, Philosophy and Methodology - Conversations on Rational Choice

🔥 My book Conversations on Rational Choice is finally out: Conversation partners include Kenneth Arrow, Gary Becker, C. Bicchieri, D. Kahneman, P. Suppes, Christian List, Vernon Smith, Tom Schelling, L.A.Paul, C. Camerer, Martin Shubik, R. Kranton, and many others. www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

Zeev Goldschmidt & Christian List, Moral uncertainty resolution as belief binarization: An impossibility result - PhilPapers What action-guiding judgments should we rely on in cases of moral uncertainty, when we divide our credence among competing moral views and assign credences between 0 and 1 to propositions such ...

What action-guiding judgments should we rely on in cases of moral uncertainty? We show that the problem of moral uncertainty resolution can be modelled as a belief-binarization problem: how to arrive at all-out (“accept/reject”) judgments on some propositions based on our credences in them.