Music therapy for autism has historically been guided by a p'athology paradigm' that aims to normalize autistic people in line with neuronormativity. The neurodiversity movement has initiated a paradigm shift towards more neuro-affirming practices. However, music therapy would benefit from a more robust theoretical grounding to guide this neuro-affirming transition. We address this gap by putting forward an enactive account of autistic musical engagement - grounded in the neurodiversity paradigm - that avoids pathological framing. Drawing on first-person reports from recent qualitative studies, we discuss how autistic people use music in everyday life for emotional regulation, identity construction, and social connection, while also noting how music can sometimes clash with autistic sensory sensitivities and agency. From this enactive perspective, autistic styles of musical engagement are revealed not as a set of symptoms to be managed but as vital dimensions of sense-making. We conclude by deriving some core principles to guide the development of neuro-affirming music therapies and inclusive live music events, creating spaces for autistic flourishing.
Non-reductive functionalism holds that qualia are distinct, non-physical properties that are caused by functional properties. This view violates the plausible principles that (i) mere dispositional properties lack independent causal relevance, and (ii) convention-dependent properties lack causal relevance. David Chalmers' main arguments for the view rest on his dancing qualia and fading qualia thought experiments. But in each argument, at least one of two premises is implausible, depending on whether we take qualia to be epiphenomenal or not.
Drawing on reflections on two case stories from music therapy, we will develop several suggestions about relationships between musicking, selfhood, and mental health. The first case story is about Fred, a young man who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The second is about Frida, an adult woman diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. There are substantial differences between their situations and medical conditions, but their experiences of music therapy have some shared characteristics, such as how their relationships to themselves and the world have been affected positively, in what we describe as a journey of embodied selfhood through musicking. We explore ways to theoretically frame the similarities in their music therapy experiences. The framework used when developing the theoretical argument is enactive cognitive science. Fred's and Frida's stories, as well as an emergent body of scientific work, indicate that musicking in music therapy could work as a 'laboratory' for future examinations of how implicit body memory, intercorporeality, rhythm, and synchrony are central to the development of higher social and cognitive processes associated with consciousness and mental health. Based on this, we have identified a range of possible areas of future research and theory development.
As we construct increasingly complex artificial intelligences, the question of their moral status becomes all the more pressing. But answering this question alone isn't enough to answer the deeper question of how we ought to treat AIs. To answer this, we need to know about their interests. This, in turn, requires knowing about the contents and valences of their mental states. Focusing on large language models (LLMs), I argue that future LLMs could have consciousness, intentional states, and moral status. But - given plausible assumptions about consciousness and intentionality - the content of their intentional states will essentially be inaccessible to us. 'Pain' talk from an LLM may be meaningful, but there is no reason to think it expresses pain. 'Desire' talk from an LLM may be meaningful, but there is no reason to think it expresses desires. Our epistemic position regarding LLMs is radically and hopelessly impoverished.
We explore and argue for the view that intelligence beyond a certain threshold is negatively correlated with consciousness, so that the more intelligent a system is, the less likely it is to be conscious. ‘Intelligence is the enemy of consciousness’, as we put it. This view entails that superintelligent AI models are likely to be zombies. After presenting an initial defence of the view that draws on the research programme of resource-rational analysis, we argue that recent developments in AI research provide additional evidence supporting it. We conclude by exploring its moral implications. First, we suggest that if our view is right, a certain type of moral risk can be averted since researchers are unlikely to stumble into accidentally creating AI models that are conscious. Second, we discuss a new form of AI risk that arises from our view.
