Paavo Pylkkänen is a Finnish philosopher of mind. He is associate professor in philosophy at Skövde University College

Skövde University College

Skövde University College is a university college in Skövde, Sweden. It has approximately 11000 students. Lecturers and other educational staff number around 340, with approximately 100 persons in administration as of March 2007...

 and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Helsinki

University of Helsinki

The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

. He is particularly known for his work on mind-body-studies, building on David Bohm

David Bohm

David Joseph Bohm FRS was an American-born British quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy, neuropsychology, and the Manhattan Project.-Youth and college:...

's interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular Bohm's view of the cosmos as an enfolding and unfolding whole including mind and matter.

Pylkkänen's areas of specialization are the mind-body problem, the basis of cognitive science

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

, philosophy of physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, the philosophy of David Bohm and the foundations of quantum theory

Quantum theory

Quantum theory may mean:In science:*Quantum mechanics: a subset of quantum physics explaining the physical behaviours at atomic and sub-atomic levels*Old quantum theory under the Bohr model...

.

Since 1996 he has been employed at the University of Skövde in Skövde

Skövde

Skövde is a locality and the seat of Skövde Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden with 34 446 inhabitants .Skövde is situated some 150 km northeast of Gothenburg, between Sweden's two largest lakes, Vänern and Vättern. It sits on the eastern slope of a low mountain ridge Billingen ,...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, where he initiated a consciousness studies program combining philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. From 2008 to 2010 he worked as university lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, the University of Helsinki. He is currently associate professor in philosophy at the newly founded Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy at the University of Skövde, while also working as an adjunct professor (docent) at the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki.

Pylkkänen has worked and published together with theoretical physicist Basil Hiley

Basil Hiley

Basil Hiley, born 1935, is a British quantum physicist and professor emeritus of the University of London.- Work :Hiley published a paper in 1961 on the random walk of a macromolecule, which was followed by further papers on the Ising model, and lattice constant systems defined in graph theoretical...

, close co-worker of David Bohm over three decades. Hiley and Pylkkänen together addressed the question of the relation between mind and matter by the hypothesis of an active information within the conceptual framework of the de Broglie–Bohm theory. Pylkkänen's work Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order (2007) builds upon David Bohm 's ontological

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 interpretation of quantum theory, in which quantum processes are understood as a holomovement

Holomovement

The holomovement is a key concept in David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics and for his overall wordview. It brings together the holistic principle of "undivided wholeness" with the idea that everything is in a state of process or becoming...

 in terms of implicate and explicate orders

Implicate and explicate order according to David Bohm

According to David Bohm's theory, implicate and explicate orders are characterised by:-David Bohm's challenges to some generally prevailing views:...

.

Publications

Articles and book chapters:

• Pylkkänen, P.: David Bohm och den vetenskapliga andan, 2010, Beyond belief and knowledge: Thoughts from a dialogue. Liljenström, H. & Linderman, A. (eds.). Stockholm : Carlsson p. 127–142. (In Swedish language)
• Pylkkänen, P. : Quantum philosophy is philosophy enough, 2010, How we became doctors of philosophy. Roinila, M. (ed.). Helsinki: Suomen Filosofinen Yhdistys ry. p. 151–157.
• Pylkkänen, P.: Implications of Bohmian quantum ontology for psychopathology, March 2010. In : Neuroquantology. vol. 8, no. 1, p. 37–48.
• Pylkkänen, P.: Does dynamical modelling explain time consciousness?, 2007, Computation, Information, Cognition: The Nexus and the Liminal. Stuart, S. & Crnkovic, G. D. (eds.). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press p. 218–229.
• Pylkkänen, P.: Escaping the prison of language, 2007, Communication - Action - Meaning: A Festschrift to Jens Allwood. E. A. (ed.). Department of Linguistics, Göteborg University

Books:

• Pylkkänen, P.: Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order, 2007 Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer-Verlag. 270 p. (The Frontiers Collection), ISBN 3-540-23891-3.
• Pylkkänen, P. & Hiley, B. J.: Can mind affect matter via active information?, In: Mind and Matter, vol. 3, no. 2, Imprint Academic, 2005, p. 7–26.
• Paavo Pylkkänen and Tere Vadén (eds.): Dimensions of conscious experience, Advances in Consciousness Research, Volume 37, John Benjamins B.V., 2001, ISBN 1-58811-125-3.
• David Bohm & Charles Biederman (Paavo Pylkkänen, ed.): Bohm-Biederman Correspondence: Creativity and science, Routledge, 1999, ISBN 0-415-16225-4.
• P. Pylkkänen, P. Pylkkö, A. Hautamäki (eds.): Brain, Mind and Physics, IOS Press, 1997, ISBN 90-5199-254-8.
• P. Pylkkänen: Mind, matter and active information: the relevance of David Bohm's interpretation of quantum theory to cognitive science, Yliopistopaino, 1992, ISBN 9514561902
• P. Pylkkänen (ed.): The Search for Meaning: The New Spirit in Science and Philosophy, Crucible, The Aquarian Press, 1989, ISBN 978-1852740610.

External links

• Paavo Pylkkänen, University of Helsinki
• Paavo Pylkkänen, publications
• Paavo Pylkkänen, University of Skövde