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I respond to Ned Block’s claim that it is “ridiculous” to suppose that consciousness is a cultural construction based on language, and learned in childhood. Block is wrong to dismiss social constructivist theories of consciousness on account of it being “ludicrous” that conscious experience is anything but a biological feature of our animal heritage, characterized by sensory experience, evolved over millions of years. By defending social constructivism in terms of both Julian Jaynes’ behaviorism and J.J. Gibson’s ecological psychology, I draw a distinction between the experience or “what-it-is-like” of nonhuman animals engaging with the environment and the “secret theater of speechless monologue” that is familiar to a linguistically competent human adult. This distinction grounds the argument that consciousness proper should be seen as learned rather than innate and shared with nonhuman animals. Upon establishing this claim, I defend the Jaynesian definition of consciousness as a social-linguistic construct learned in childhood, structured in terms of lexical metaphors and narrative practice. Finally, I employ the Jaynesian distinction between cognition and consciousness to bridge the explanatory gap and deflate the supposed “Hard” problem of consciousness.
Many philosophers have held that we cannot say what it is like to be a bat as they present a fundamentally alien form of life. Another view held by some philosophers, bat scientists, and even many laypersons is that echolocation is, somehow, at least in part, a kind of visual experience. Either way, bat echolocation is taken to be something very mysterious and exotic. I utilize empirical and intuitive considerations to support an alternative view making a much more mundane contention about bat phenomenology: echolocatory experience probably just has an auditory character. These points also call for further reflection on our intuitions about animal consciousness and standard arguments for the explanatory gap.
Peter Carruthers' Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest
Peter Carruthers' Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest2020 •
Review of Peter Carruthers' Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest
Biological Theory
Towards a Comparative Study of Animal Consciousness2022 •
In order to develop a true biological science of consciousness, we have to remove humans from the center of reference and develop a bottom-up comparative study of animal minds, as Donald Griffin intended with his call for a "cognitive ethology." In this article, I make use of the pathological complexity thesis (Veit 2022a, b, c) to show that we can firmly ground a comparative study of animal consciousness by drawing on the resources of state-based behavioral life history theory. By comparing the different life histories of gastropods and arthropods, we will be able to make better sense of the possible origins of consciousness and its function for organisms in their natural environments.
Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 3(2): 125–134
Introduction: Anthropologies of Consciousness.2010 •
The topic of the paper is twofold. I will discuss a related set of ideas concerning the constitution of consciousness. One is the computational model of the brain in neuroscience, which considers the brain to be an information-processing organ to which all conscious life can be reduced. The second idea originates from media philosophy, where consciousness is taken to be informed by technological processes inaccessible by experience. Both theories are reductive in the sense that they prioritize processes beyond consciousness and embodied perception. And both are related to technology and time (temporal and ontological primacy of non-conscious processes). In this paper I want to argue for the necessity to accommodate an account of experience within such frameworks. The reason to do so is our changing life-world. Technology becomes more and more integrated into everyday objects and is measuring an enormous amount of data generated by our usage of technological devices. On the one hand side, the ubiquity of technology is going to have an impact on how we interact with and are embedded in these smart environments. On the other hand side the data gathered via these devices is going to contribute to the analysis of human behavior and hence its evaluation. To deal with these developments we need to come to grips with the experiential aspects of what it means to live in smart environments. The neuroscientific part of these considerations is important because this kind of knowledge of human cognition enters technological design and is itself in huge parts brought forth by means of computer technology. The scientific discussion around consciousness and its relatedness to neural and technological processes has given rise to a variety of theories with different ontological premises, like the primacy of neural processes or technogenesis of consciousness. Katherine Hayles (2012) for example speaks of a technogenesis of consciousness. That means digital technology constitutes how we think prior to our conscious experience. Neuroscience and media philosophy develop constitutional accounts of consciousness, which exclude experience of the
Forthcoming in JOURNAL OF CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES
Consciousness, language, and the possibility of non-human personhood: Reflections on elephants2019 •
I investigate the extent to which there might be, now or in the future, non-human animals that partake in the kind of fully human-style consciousness (FHSC) that has been taken by many philosophers to be the basis of normative personhood. I first sketch a conceptual framework for considering the question, based on a range of philosophical literature on relationships between consciousness, language and personhood. I then review the standard basis for largely a priori skepticism about the possibility that any non-human animal could experience FHSC and be a person to any extent, and indicate empirically motivated grounds for rejecting such skepticism, at least with respect to a select group of hypersocial candidate species with communication systems we do not currently know are not languages: corvids, parrots, elephants, and toothed whales. Relevant facts about elephants are reviewed in some detail, as a mini case study. While it is suggested that elephants might partake in the sort of consciousness characteristic of personhood to some extent, grounds are given for expecting that this extent is sharply limited by comparison with normal humans. As these grounds are mainly aspects of elephants’ external niche, however, rather than known limitations in their inboard cognitive or representational capacities, the surprising conclusion emerges that elephants might acquire FHSC, and thereby become persons, if they can be brought into conversation with humans, a possibility opened by considerations canvassed in the paper.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
On the Distribution of Crop Yields: Does the Central Limit Theorem Apply?2011 •
Neuro endocrinology letters
Regional brain metabolism as the predictor of performance on the Trail Making Test in schizophrenia. A 18FDG PET covariation study2006 •
2015 •
Health SA Gesondheid
Erratum: Demographic and socio-economic predictors of physical activity among people living with HIV of low socio-economic status2021 •
2018 •
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science
Genetic correlations between piglet birth weight, its variation and survival in different dam and sire lines using Bayesian analysis2009 •
2014 •
2022 •
Endocrine Abstracts
Efficacy of early postoperative radiotherapy for nonfunctioning null cell or silent pituitary macroadenomas2014 •
Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
Efficacy of intraoperative surgical irrigation with polihexanide and nitrofurazone in reducing bacterial load after nail removal surgery2011 •
IBM journal of research and development
Functional verification of the IBM System z10 processor chipset2009 •
2011 •
Pathology and Visual Culture: The Scientific Artworks of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot and the Salpêtrière School
Pathology and Visual Culture: The Scientific Artworks of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot and the Salpêtrière School2024 •
Acta Medica (Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic)
NT-proBNP and Echocardiographic Parameters in Patients with Acute Heart Failure2007 •
Scientific Reports
Electromagnetic field and TGF-β enhance the compensatory plasticity after sensory nerve injury in cockroach Periplaneta americana2021 •
2016 •
The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher
Ask a Scientist Website: Trends in Chemistry Questions in Turkey2013 •
Rachel A Williams