Theories of Consciousness

Information and meanings are present everywhere around us and within ourselves. Specific studies have been implemented in order to link information and meaning (Linguistic, Semiotic, Biosemiotic, Psychology, Psychiatry, Biology, Neurology, Cognition, Artificial Intelligence... ). No general coverage is available for the notion of meaning. We propose to complement this lack by a system approach for meaning genaration. A Meaning Generator System based on constraint satisfaction is presented. It can be used for animals, humans and artificial agents, and makes available definitions (...) for agency and autonomy. Usage of the MGS with the Turing Test shows why today computers cannot think like humans do. The MGS introduces evolutionary scenarios for cognition, intentionality and self-consciousness where a specific human anxiety is highlighted. Anxiety limitation is then a key human constraint tightly related to an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. That new perspective positions mostly unconscious anxiety management processes as driving human mental states and conditioning our mental health, much more than assumed so far. Continuations are proposed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTononi’s Integrated Information Theory explains consciousness as integrated information, that is, the informational state produced by the whole system over the sum of its parts. M...

Integration information theories posit that the integration of information is necessary and/or sufficient for consciousness. In this paper, we focus on three of the most prominent information integration theories: Information Integration Theory (IIT), Global Workspace Theory (GWT), and Attended Intermediate-Level Theory (AIR). We begin by explicating each theory and key concepts they utilize (e.g., information, integration, etc.). We then argue that the current evidence indicates that the integration of information (as specified by each of the theories) is neither necessary nor (...) sufficient for consciousness. Unlike GWT and AIR, IIT maintains that conscious experience is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness. We present empirical evidence indicating that simple features are experienced in the absence of feature integration and argue that it challenges IIT’s necessity claim. In addition, we challenge IIT’s sufficiency claim by presenting evidence from hemineglect cases and amodal completion indicating that contents may be integrated and yet fail to give rise to subjective experience. Moreover, we present empirical evidence from subjects with frontal lesions who are unable to carry out simple instructions (despite appearing to understand their meaning) and argue that they are irreconcilable with GWT. Lastly, we argue that empirical evidence indicating that patients with visual agnosia fail to identify objects they report being conscious of present a challenge to AIR’s necessity claim. (shrink)

The main goal of this article consists in addressing two fundamental issues of consciousness research and cognitive science, namely, the question of why declarative memory functions are inextricably linked with phenomenal awareness and the question of the physical basis of memory traces. The presented approach proposes that high-level cognitive processes involving consciousness employ a universal mechanism by means of which they access and modulate an omnipresent background field that is identified with the zero-point field (ZPF) specified by stochastic electrodynamics, a (...) branch of physics that deals with the universal principles underlying quantum systems. In addition to its known physical properties and memory capacities, the ZPF is hypothesized to be an immanently sentient medium. It is propounded that linking up to a particular field mode of the ZPF activates a particular phenomenal nuance, implying that the phase-locked coupling of a set of field modes, i.e., the formation of a so-called ZPF information state, constitutes an appropriate mechanism for the amalgamation of elementary shades of consciousness into a complex state of consciousness. Since quantum systems rest exactly on this mechanism, conscious memory processes in the brain are expected to differ from unconscious processes by the presence of the typical features of many-body quantum systems, particularly long-range coherence and attractor formation, which is supported by a huge body of empirical evidence. On this basis, the conceptual framework set out in this article paves the way for a new understanding of the brain as a write-read head interacting with the ZPF, leading to self-consistent interpretations of the neural correlates of memory formation and memory retrieval and explaining why these memory processes are closely intertwined with phenomenal awareness. In particular, the neural correlates suggest that the brain produces consciously perceived memory traces by writing sequences of information states into the ZPF and retrieves consciously experienced memory traces by reading sequences of information states from the ZPF. Using these theoretical foundations, altered states of consciousness and memory disorders can be traced back to impairments of the ZPF write-read mechanism. The mechanism should reveal itself through characteristic photon emissions, resulting in testable predictions. (shrink)

The causal pairing problem allegedly renders nonphysical minds causally impotent. This article demonstrates how a dualist view I call neo-Thomistic hylomorphism can circumnavigate the causal pairing problem. After explicating the problem and hylomorphism, I provide an account of causal pairing that appeals to a foundational tenet of hylomorphism. Subsequently, I suggest that a prominent view of consciousness in theoretical neuroscience—the integrated information theory—can learn from hylomorphism and likewise account for causal pairing.

This very short paper provides a panpsychic solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. It was presented to the Philosophical Society of the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education (OUDCE) on 18th August 2019, and posted on Twitter (@ATBollands) on the 20th August, 2019. It solves the Hard Problem by 1) making the case for Panpsychism, and 2) solving the Combination Problem (Panpsychism's equivalent of the Hard Problem). -/- The paper aims to be clear, concise, to-the-point and accessible to the (...) general educated reader. It is short on discussion and elaboration, and does not seek to defend its argument against all reasonable objections. However, by keeping its argument to under 2 pages, it ensures the casual reader is not discouraged from taking a look, allowing them to engage with both the Hard Problem and this Short Solution. (shrink)

Neural correlates of consciousness (for brevity NCC) are foundational to the scientific study of consciousness. Chalmers (2000) has provided the most informative and influential definition of NCC, according to which neural correlates are minimally sufficient for consciousness. However, the sense of sufficiency needs further clarification since there are several relevant senses with different entailments. In section one of this article, we give an overview of the desiderata for a good definition of NCC and Chalmers’s definition. The second section analyses the (...) merit of understanding the sufficiency of neural correlates for corresponding consciousness according to three relevant types of sufficiency: logical, metaphysical, and physical. In section three, a theoretical approach to consciousness studies is suggested in light of the sense in which NCC are sufficient for consciousness. Section four addresses a concern some might have about this approach. By the end, it will become apparent that our conception of NCC has important implications for research methodology, neuroethics, and the vitality of the search for NCC. (shrink)

Time is one of the greatest subjects of interest to the disciplines of both Science and Philosophy, being seen to have a greater importance in the workings of reality than other entities. In this paper, a phenomenological analysis of time based on the general workings of the emergent structure of consciousness will be done, and time will be shown to be no different than any other qualia. It will be shown that, like any other qualia, time is an emergent level (...) of consciousness, manifesting all the properties of emergence: inheritance of qualities from the previous levels, top-down influence in levels received from the higher levels and top-down influence in levels impressed on the lower levels. (shrink)

Consciousness is arguably the greatest mystery in science, still being unsolved after millennia of thinking. This book is one further attempt at trying to bring new insights regarding consciousness. While certainly the mystery will continue, the ideas in this book will raise awareness regarding an aspect of the phenomenology of consciousness that has been overlooked by past thinkers, and that is the emergent structure of consciousness, which in the end will be shown to be realized by the nature of self-reference (...) of looking-back-at-itself. The great take-away from appreciating the true nature of self-refence would be the need to switch to an unformal way of thinking in doing science if the problem of consciousness is to be resolved. To unformal way of thinking means abandoning the desire to have clearly defined entities in our theories, like “energy” or “space-time” or “spin”, and instead allow for entities that cannot be formalized, to be responsible for the workings of the world. We will slowly see as the book unfolds why the need for unformal way of thinking arises. -/- Regarding the presentation style, the book is both a popular book and a rigorous presentation that goes into thorough phenomenological analyses of consciousness. The reason is that our lives themselves are both familiar and the very nature of existence. As opposed to other writings that use a more technical approach, the philosophy of this book is that a theory of consciousness should focus more on the most mundane manifestations of consciousness, like the redness of an apple or the warmish feeling of cup of hot chocolate, in order to give a clearer understanding of consciousness. Therefore, the book is full of everyday examples of conscious experiences that the reader can relate to and use them to gain deeper insights into the workings of consciousness. In the same way that LHC is the laboratory of physicists, introspection is our own laboratory, the advantage of introspection over LHC being that it is accessible to anyone. Every person can gain a deep knowledge of consciousness by simply paying close attention to his own experiences. Of course, the difficulty arises because of the huge diversity of our experiences and this might raise an apparent initial obstacle of where one is to begin his understanding of consciousness. The book is designed as a guide through the complexities of everyday experiences in the direction of sorting them out in general and clear ways of thinking, showing that consciousness needs not be something that difficult to understand if only the proper attention is given to our experiences. -/- Therefore, the book starts with a chapter about qualia, where through many examples it is shown to be a form of meaning. Then the reader is familiarized with the Self through simple thought experiments that lead to the conclusion of the unicity of the Self, and then a further logical analysis that shows the eternal existence of the Self. After these initial familiarizations with consciousness, the book goes into its core subject, that being the emergent phenomenology, in which it will be shown how consciousness is structured on a holarchy of levels and how ultimately this structuring is a result of self-reference looking-back-at-itself, consciousness being shown to be possible only because of the unformalizable nature of self-reference. (shrink)

This contribution examines two radically different explanations of our phenomenal intuitions, one reductive and one strongly non-reductive, and identifies two germane ideas that could benefit many other theories of consciousness. Firstly, the ability of sophisticated agent architectures with a purely physical implementation to support certain functional forms of qualia or proto-qualia appears to entail the possibility of machine consciousness with qualia, not only for reductive theories but also for the nonreductive ones that regard consciousness as ubiquitous in Nature. Secondly, analysis (...) of introspective psychological material seems to hint that, under the threshold of our ordinary waking awareness, there exist further ‘submerged’ or ‘subliminal’ layers of consciousness which constitute a hidden foundation and support and another source of our phenomenal intuitions. These ‘submerged’ layers might help explain certain puzzling phenomena concerning subliminal perception, such as the apparently ‘unconscious’ multisensory integration and learning of subliminal stimuli. (shrink)

Whether the prefrontal cortex is part of the neural substrates of consciousness is currently debated. Against prefrontal theories of consciousness, many have argued that neural activity in the prefrontal cortex does not correlate with consciousness but with subjective reports. We defend prefrontal theories of consciousness against this argument. We surmise that the requirement for reports is not a satisfying explanation of the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious trials, and that prefrontal theories of consciousness come out of this (...) debate unscathed. (shrink)

This thesis articulates an analytic version of the ontology of idealism, according to which universal phenomenal consciousness is all there ultimately is, everything else in nature being reducible to patterns of excitation of this consciousness. The thesis’ key challenge is to explain how the seemingly distinct conscious inner lives of different subjects—such as you and me—can arise within this fundamentally unitary phenomenal field. Along the way, a variety of other challenges are addressed, such as: how we can reconcile idealism with (...) the fact that we all inhabit a common external world; why this world unfolds independently of our personal volition or imagination; why there are such tight correlations between measured patterns of brain activity and reports of experience; etc. The core idea of this thesis can be summarized thus: we, as well as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of universal phenomenal consciousness, analogously to how a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) manifests multiple disjoint centers of subjectivity also called ‘alters.’ We, and all other living organisms, are surrounded by the transpersonal phenomenal activity of universal consciousness, which unfolds beyond the dissociative boundary of our respective alter. The inanimate world we perceive around us is the extrinsic appearance—i.e. the phenomenal image imprinted from across our dissociative boundary—of this activity. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other alters. (shrink)

This is a 2018 revision of my 1988 dissertation "The Choreography of the Soul" with a new Foreword, a new Conclusion, a substantially revised Preface and Introduction, and many improvements to the body of the work. However, the thesis remains the same. A theory of consciousness and trance states--including psychedelic experience--is developed. Consciousness can be analyzed into two distinct but generally interrelated systems, which I call System X and System Y. System X is the emotional-visceral-kinaesthetic body. System X is a (...) harmonic system of "endokinetic" (internal bodily) and "ectokinetic" (emotionally expressive) movement. System Y is a "teleokinetic" (goal directed) system that includes language, cognition, perception, voluntary motor control, manipulation of the environment, etc. Contrary to theories of consciousness prevalent in the Western philosophical traditions that begin with Plato, I argue that System Y is secondary to and dependent upon System X, not the reverse. In building my thesis I draw upon the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, psychoanalysis, Jungian depth psychology, political anthropology, modern neuroscience, Pythagorean music theory, and the mathematical theory of harmonic systems. (shrink)

The relationship between attention and consciousness is one that is crucial for understanding perception and different types of conscious experience, and we commend this analysis of the topic by Pitts, Lutsyshyna, and Hillyard (2018). We have also examined this relationship closely (e.g., Montemayor & Haladjian, 2015) and would like to point out a few potential contradictions in the Pitts et al. paper that require clarification, particularly in the attempt to reconcile aspects of recurrent processing theory (RPT) with global neuronal workspace (...) theory (GNWT). This commentary addresses these points and introduces other considerations important for this topic. (shrink)

Conspectus of part of John R. Smythies' Analysis of Perception (1956). It presents a summary of his ideas on phenomenal space – the space of one’s imagination, dreams, psychedelic experiences, somatic sensations, visions, hynagogia, etc. – and its relation to physical space.

This article presents a new interpretation of the consciousness-related neuroscientific findings using the framework of stochastic electrodynamics (SED), a branch of physics that sheds light on the basic principles underlying quantum systems. It is propounded that SED supplemented by two well-founded hypotheses leads to a satisfying explanation of the neural correlates of consciousness. The theoretical framework thus defined is based on the notion that all conceivable shades of phenomenal awareness are woven into the frequency spectrum of a universal background field, (...) called zero-point field (ZPF), implying that the fundamental mechanism underlying conscious systems rests upon the access to information available in the ZPF. The body of evidence can be interpreted such that in the extroverted, stimulus-oriented operating mode the brain produces streams of consciousness by periodically writing persistent information states into the ZPF (theta cycle). In the introspective operating mode, which goes along with activations of the default mode network, the brain is receptive to the flow of ZPF information states that constitutes the record of conscious experiences, suggesting that the sense of self and the retrieval of memories is accomplished by periodically reading (filtering) persistent information states from the ZPF (alpha cycle). Moreover, the data support the conclusion that meditative practices and psychedelics detune the filter, thus preventing the instantiation of self-referential conscious states, which leads to the dissolution of the ego. Instead, the brain taps into a wider spectrum of ZPF modes and, hence, gains access to an extended phenomenal color palette, resulting in expanded consciousness. (shrink)

Resumen: La investigación se ciñe en el análisis del primer periodo de producción filosófica del filósofo japonés NISHIDA Kitarô (1870-1945) y, con tal motivo, se ciñe al estudio de tres de sus obras: Estudio sobre el Bien (1911), Intuición y Reflexión en la Autoconciencia (1917) y Arte y Moral (1923). Con ello, se trata de responder a la necesidad de presentar una aproximación factible y plausible cuyo objetivo es arrojar luz sobre las consecuencias que resultan del enfoque psicologista y voluntarista (...) que marca la primera etapa de la filosofía de Nishida. Con ello se quiere clarificar hasta qué punto, bajo qué condiciones y cómo, Nishida maneja determinada idea de subjetividad y, específicamente, cómo con ello pone sobre la mesa todo un conjunto de interrogantes comunes a la modernidad que permean en los presupuestos epistemológicos, éticos y en el estudio de la creación y apreciación artísticas. Abstract: The research presents an analysis of the first period of philosophical production of the Japanese philosopher NISHIDA Kitarô (1870-1945). For that reason, it presents the inquiry around three of his major works: Inquiry into the Good (1911), Intuition and Reflection in Self-consciousness (1917), and Art and Morality (1923). The aim is to respond to the necessity of introduce a feasible and plausible approximation that wants to throw light about the consequences resulting from a psychologist and voluntarist point of view typical of the first period of Nishida's works. It wants to clarify the conditions and how Nishida uses certain idea about subjectivity and, especially, how is conduced his asking about some epistemological, ethical as well as artistic schemes shared and common to philosophical modernity. (shrink)

“I am me”, but what does this mean? For centuries humans identified themselves as conscious beings with free will, beings that are important in the cosmos they live in. However, modern science has been trying to reduce us into unimportant pawns in a cold universe and diminish our sense of consciousness into a mere illusion generated by lifeless matter. Our identity in the cosmos is nothing more than a deception and all the scientific evidence seem to support this idea. Or (...) is it not? The goal of this paper is to discard current underlying dogmatism (axioms taken for granted as "self-evident") of modern mind research and to show that consciousness seems to be the ultimate frontier that will cause a major change in the way exact sciences think. If we want to re-discover our identity as luminous beings in the cosmos, we must first try to pinpoint our prejudices and discard them. Materialism is an obsolete philosophical dogma and modern scientists should try to also use other premises as the foundation of their theories to approach the mysteries of the self. Exact sciences need to examine the world with a more open mind, accepting potentially different interpretations of existing experimental data in the fields of brain research, which are currently not considered simply on the basis of a strong anti-spiritual dogmatism. Such interpretations can be compatible with the notion of an immaterial spirit proposed by religion for thousands of years. Mind seems that is not the by-product of matter, but the opposite: its master. No current materialistic theory can explain how matter may give rise to what we call “self” and only a drastic paradigm shift towards more idealistic theories will help us avoid rejecting our own nature. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on a recent debate in extended cognition known as “cognitive assembly” and how cognitive assembly shares a certain kinship with the special composition question advanced in analytical metaphysics. Both the debate about cognitive assembly and the special composition question ask about the circumstances under which entities (broadly construed) compose or assemble another entity. The paper argues for two points. The first point is that insofar as the metaphysics of composition presupposes that composition is a synchronic (...) relation of dependence, then that presupposition is inconsistent with the temporal dynamics inherent in the process of cognitive assembly. The second point is that by developing a diachronic or temporally dynamic ontology for understanding the phenomenon of cognitive assembly, this lends support for a third wave of extended cognition. (shrink)

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – (...) its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward. (shrink)

By reviewing most of the neurobiology of consciousness, this article highlights some major reasons why a successful emulation of the dynamics of human consciousness by artificial intelligence is unlikely. The analysis provided leads to conclude that human consciousness is epigenetically determined and experience and context-dependent at the individual level. It is subject to changes in time that are essentially unpredictable. If cracking the code to human consciousness were possible, the result would most likely have to consist of a temporal pattern (...) code simulating long-distance signal reverberation and de-correlation of all spatial signal contents from temporal signals. In the light of the massive evidence for complex interactions between implicit (non-conscious) and explicit (conscious) contents of representation, the code would have to be capable of making implicit (non-conscious) processes explicit. It would have to be capable of a progressively less and less arbitrary selection of temporal activity patterns in a continuously developing neural network structure identical to that of the human brain, from the synaptic level to that of higher cognitive functions. The code’s activation thresholds would depend on specific temporal signal coincidence probabilities, vary considerably with time and across individual experience data, and would therefore require dynamically adaptive computations capable of emulating the properties of individual human experience. No known machine or neural network learning approach has such potential. (shrink)

(From the Publisher 2017) Featuring many important updates and revisions, the highly-anticipated second edition of The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness offers a collection of readings that together represent the most thorough and comprehensive survey of the nature of consciousness available today. Chapters delve deeply into the wide variety of scientific and philosophical problems that arise from the study of consciousness—as well as the philosophical, cognitive, neuroscientific, and phenomenological approaches to solving them. -/- Along with updates to existing scientific readings reflecting (...) the latest research data, this edition features 18 entirely new theoretical, empirical and methodological chapters covering such areas as integrated information theory, the resurgence in panpsychism, the renewed interest in more sophisticated first-person methodologies for the investigation of conscious phenomenology, and many others. Featuring contributions by leading experts in the study of consciousness, from across a variety of academic disciplines, the 54-chapter collection reasserts its role as the most thorough, authoritative, and up-to-date survey of the subject available today. Illuminating and thought-provoking, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for those wishing to gain insights into the latest contemporary thinking on consciousness. (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness is becoming an increasingly popular neuroscientific account of phenomenal experience. IIT claims that consciousness is integrated information in a system. I set this theory against the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1996, 1995) as the goal for a theory of consciousness to meet. In this essay I look to examine and ultimately critique IIT’s use of the notion of information to base a theory of consciousness. I argue that the notion of information in IIT (...) is a purely structural-dynamical notion, and so falls afoul of the structure and dynamics argument (Chalmers, 2003). I bolster these claims by appeal to the explanatory gap argument and show how IIT succumbs to this argument as well. For these reasons, I call into doubt IIT’s ability to answer the hard problem of consciousness. Although this paper argues against the notion of information in IIT, in a broader context the criticisms which I raise here can be brought against any theory that attempts to explain consciousness as an information-theoretic phenomenon. (shrink)

An influential thesis in contemporary philosophy of mind is that subjectivity is best conceived as inner awareness of qualia. has argued that this unique subjective awareness generates a paradox which resists empirical explanation. On account of this “paradox of subjective duality,” Levine concludes that the hardest part of the hard problem of consciousness is to explain how anything like a subjective point of view could arise in the world. Against this, I argue that the nature of subjective thought is not (...) correctly characterized as inner awareness, that a non-paradoxical approach to the first-person perspective is available, and that the problem about subjectivity should be distinguished from the perennial problem of qualia or phenomenal properties. (shrink)

There has been an explosion of work on consciousness in the last 30–40 years from philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists. Thus, there is a need for an interdisciplinary, comprehensive volume in the field that brings together contributions from a wide range of experts on fundamental and cutting-edge topics. The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness fills this need and makes each chapter’s importance understandable to students and researchers from a variety of backgrounds. Designed to complement and better explain primary sources, this volume is (...) a valuable "first-stop" publication for undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in any course on "Consciousness," "Philosophy of Mind," or "Philosophy of Psychology," as well as a valuable handbook for researchers in these fields who want a useful reference to have close at hand. The 34 chapters, all published here for the first time, are divided into three parts: Part I covers the "History and Background Metaphysics" of consciousness, such as dualism, materialism, free will, and personal identity, and includes a chapter on Indian philosophy. Part II is on specific "Contemporary Theories of Consciousness," with chapters on representational, information integration, global workspace, attention-based, and quantum theories. Part III is entitled "Major Topics in Consciousness Research," with chapters on psychopathologies, dreaming, meditation, time, action, emotion, multisensory experience, animal and robot consciousness, and the unity of consciousness. -/- Each chapter begins with a brief introduction and concludes with a list of "Related Topics," as well as a list of "References," making the volume indispensable for the newcomer and experienced researcher alike. (shrink)

This paper explores substantive accounts of emotional phenomenology so as to see whether it sheds light on key features of emotions. To this end, we focus on four features that can be introduced by way of an example. Say Sam is angry at Maria’s nasty remark. The first feature relates to the fact that anger is a negative emotion, by contrast with positive emotions such as joy and admiration (valence). The second feature is how anger differs from other emotions such (...) as sadness, fear and joy (individuation). The third concerns the objects of anger and the sense in which anger discloses the significance of Maria’s remark to Sam (intentionality). Finally, there is anger’s relation to behaviour (motivation). Does focussing on emotional phenomenology encourage specific accounts of these features? We shall see that there are reasons to think it does. Still, are these reasons of sufficient import to dispel the scepticism of those who think that nothing of consequence plays out at the personal level of emotional experience? Given the role of emotional experience in our evaluative practices, we shall conclude that they are. Our discussion is structured as follows: section 1 focuses on feeling approaches to phenomenology, section 2 on componential approaches, section 3 on perceptual approaches and section 4 on attitudinal approaches. Section 5 concludes with some observations regarding the significance of emotional phenomenology. (shrink)

Reflecting on the distinction between thinking about a non-occurrent pain and feeling a current pain takes us into the domain of contemporary philosophy of mind. In the former case we talk of the mental state’s intentional properties, in the latter of phenomenal properties. Daniel Dennett’s contributions to this discussion are clearly limned in his Content and Consciousness and it is no accident that its reappearance as a paperback is so quickly followed by his new collection, The Intentional Stance. The latter (...) work continues to develop themes begun in the former, especially his embedding philosophy of mind within an evolutionary framework. For those interested in contemporary philosophy of mind and Dennett’s exciting and controversial views, Content and Consciousness provides an excellent introduction and even some much needed “cash” for his latter views. In very broad strokes here is what he is up to. (shrink)

Creatures that have different physical realizations than human beings may or may not be conscious. Ned Block’s ‘harder problem of consciousness’ is that naturalistic phenomenal realists have no conception of a rational ground for belief that they have or have not discovered consciousness in such a creature. Drawing on the notion of inference to the best explanation, it appears the arguments to these conclusions beg the question and ignore that explanation may be a guide to discovery. Thus, best explanation can (...) both validate an interpretation of the evidence and lead to the discovery of consciousness. (shrink)

In this article, I present a novel approach to the scientific understanding of consciousness. It is based on the hypothesis that the full range of phenomenal qualities is built into the frequency spectrum of a ubiquitous background field and proceeds on the assumption that conscious systems employ a universal mechanism by means of which they are able to extract phenomenal nuances selectively from this field. I set forth that in the form of the zero-point field (ZPF) physics can offer a (...) promising candidate that is qualified for playing the dual role as both the carrier of energy and consciousness. The appropriate mechanism, which rests upon the principle of dynamical coupling of ZPF modes, is a unique feature of quantum systems, suggesting that the dividing line between conscious and non-conscious systems is defined by the differentiation between quantum systems and classical systems. The presence of this mechanism in the brain is supported by the neurophysiological body of evidence, leading to a consistent explanation of the dynamical properties of the neural correlates of consciousness. Building on these findings, I lay the foundations for the conceptually coherent integration of consciousness into the physical worldview, derive an indicator for the quantity of consciousness of a given system, and outline the further steps toward a theory of consciousness. (shrink)

The proposed approaoh qualifies the relationship between the mantal phenomenon and the respective brainprocess as a relationship between information and its material bearer. The operating function of mental phenomena is explained on the basis of the principle of invariability of information in respect of the physloal properties of its bearer. This makes it possible to give a theoretleally non-contradictory description and explanation of the peculiarities of the connection of mental phenomena with brain processes.

A step towards a theory of consciousness would be to characterise the effect of consciousness on information processing. One set of results suggests that the effect of consciousness is to interfere with computations that are optimally performed non-consciously. Another set of results suggests that conscious, system 2 processing is the home of norm-compliant computation. This is contrasted with system 1 processing, thought to be typically unconscious, which operates with useful but error-prone heuristics. -/- These results can be reconciled by separating (...) out two different distinctions: between conscious and non-conscious representations, on the one hand, and between automatic and deliberate processes, on the other. This pair of distinctions is used to illuminate some existing experimental results and to resolve the puzzle about whether consciousness helps or hinders accurate information processing. This way of resolving the puzzle shows the importance of another category, which we label ‘type 0 cognition’, characterised by automatic computational processes operating on non-conscious representations. (shrink)

In the field of machine consciousness, it has been argued that in order to build human-like conscious machines, we must first have a computational model of qualia. To this end, some have proposed a framework that supports qualia in machines by implementing a model with three computational areas (i.e., the subconceptual, conceptual, and linguistic areas). These abstract mechanisms purportedly enable the assessment of artificial qualia. However, several critics of the machine consciousness project dispute this possibility. For instance, Searle, in his (...) Chinese room objection, argues that however sophisticated a computational system is, it can never exhibit intentionality; thus, would also fail to exhibit consciousness or any of its varieties. This paper argues that the proposed architecture mentioned above answers the problem posed by Searle, at least in part. Specifically, it argues that we could reformulate Searle’s worries in the Chinese room in terms of the three-stage artificial qualia model. And by doing so, we could see that the person doing all the translations in the room could realize the three areas in the proposed framework. Consequently, this demonstrates the actualization of self-consciousness in machines. (shrink)

For a long time, philosophers have considered the conundrums of consciousness, self-awareness and free will. Much more recently, scientists have joined in and begun to unravel the secrets of mind. Biologists, physicians and psychologists, studying the human brain, but also physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, working on organizational principles of intelligent information processing systems, have contributed to the subject. This contribution explains several “roads to self-awareness”, all of them based on the natural sciences. The first one follows our bio-psychological evolution. (...) The second road starts with the engineer’s point of view and mainly builds on information science and technology, in particular robotics. The third road taken is the most abstract; it exploits complex dynamic systems and their emergent properties. Despite their different origins and methods, these lines of investigation converge. That is, the findings of various fields can be combined into a unified theory of mind and self-awareness, which is the main purpose of this paper. This overall synthesis suggests that the mind results from a multi-hierarchical organizational structure, and self-reflexive flows of information in embodied systems. In addition to this, stable self-awareness appears spontaneously in sufficiently complex robots, when the system’s capability of describing itself crosses the level of conceptually clear information processing. As an application, one obtains a number of construction principles for mentally developing systems that are explained towards the end of this contribution. (shrink)

I argue that it is at least open to a proponent of type materialism for phenomenal consciousness to accept Hill’s representational theory of experiential awareness of perceptual qualia.