Empirical evidence, it has often been argued, undermines our commonsense assumptions concerning the efficacy of conscious intentions. One of the most influential advocates of this challenge has been Daniel Wegner, who has presented an impressive amount of evidence in support of a model of "apparent mental causation". According to Wegner, this model provides the best explanation of numerous curious and pathological cases of behavior. Further, it seems that Benjamin Libet's classic experiment on the initiation of action and the empirical evidence (...) concerning the confabulation of reason explanations provide further support for this view. In response, I will propose an alternative model of "real mental causation" that can accommodate the empirical evidence just as well as Wegner's. Further, we will see that there is plenty of evidence in support of the assumption that intentions are causally efficacious. This will provide us with ample reason to endorse the model of real mental causation. (shrink)

We review recent research to introduce human brain organoids into the brains of infant rats. This research shows these organoids integrate and function to affect behaviour in rats. We argue that this raises issues of moral status that will imminently arise and must be addressed through functional studies of these new life forms. We situate this research in the broader context of the biological revolution, arguing we already have the technological power to create fully human embodied animals. This raises profound, (...) so far unaddressed ethical issues which call for urgent attention. (shrink)

Here I assess Damasio’s conceptual model of consciousness based mainly on the concepts of emotion, feeling, and consciousness by analyzing its conceptual implications and its theoretical and scientific problems. One of the conceptual implications of the direct interaction between the concept of “feeling” and the concept of “consciousness” is the concept of consciousness as “feeling a feeling”, which is also recognized by Damasio. The concept “feeling a feeling” directly implies the concept of consciousness as “an emotional perception of an emotional (...) perception”. Each implication has further theoretical implica- tions that form a web of theoretical and scientific problems. I also argue that, since Damasio’s model of consciousness is a neuroscientific model, it should provide a rigorous integration between the high-order concepts and the empirical concepts that underlie them, which, for example, is the case of Dehaene’s model of consciousness. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I suggest some conceptual changes that would minimize the theoretical problems of Damasio’s conceptual model of consciousness. (shrink)

I argue that the partial-report results Block cites do not establish that phenomenology overflows cognitive accessibility, as Block maintains. So, without additional argument, the mesh he sees between psychology and neuroscience is unsupported. I argue further that there is reason to hold, contra Block, that phenomenology does always involve some cognitive access to the relevant experience.

Problems are raised with the global workspace hypothesis of consciousness, for example about exactly how global the workspace needs to be for consciousness to suddenly be present. Problems are also raised with Carruthers's version that excludes conceptual representations, and in which phenomenal consciousness can be reduced to physical processes, with instead a different levels of explanation approach to the relation between the brain and the mind advocated. A different theory of phenomenal consciousness is described, in which there is a particular (...) computational system involved in which Higher Order Syntactic Thoughts are used to perform credit assignment on first order thoughts of multiple step plans to correct them by manipulating symbols in a syntactic type of working memory. This provides a good evolutionary reason for the evolution of this kind of computational module, with which, it is proposed, phenomenal consciousness is associated. Some advantages of this HOST approach to phenomenal consciousness are then described with reference not only to the global workspace approach, but also to Higher Order Thought theories. It is hypothesized that the HOST system which requires the ability to manipulate first order symbols in working memory might utilize parts of the prefrontal cortex implicated in working memory, and especially the left inferior frontal gyrus, which is involved in language and probably syntactical processing. Overall, the approach advocated is to identify the computations that are linked to consciousness, and to analyze the neural bases of those computations. [copyright: Copyright © 2020 Rolls.]. (shrink)

Which non-human animals are phenomenally conscious? In this paper I argue that the distribution of phenomenal consciousness in the animal world is ultimately an unsolvable issue, because of an underlying problem inherent in the field: what I call the Kinda Hard Problem. The Kinda Hard Problem arises because the grounds on which we base our consciousness attributions to humans third-personally are either unavailable or ambiguous once we move to the animal case. Its nature is that of an epistemic problem: we (...) cannot collect enough evidential grounds to justify attributions of phenomenal consciousness (and attributions of its lack) to non-human animals. Thus, it is impossible to ground rational belief one way or another regarding animal consciousness. This paper presents the problem and explains how it differs from other problems of consciousness. (shrink)

Evolution is littered with polyphyletic parallelism: many roads lead to functional Romes. We propose consciousness embodies one such example, and represent it here with an equivalence class structure that factors the broad realm of necessary conditions information theoretic realizations of Baars’ global workspace model. The construction suggests many different physiological systems can support rapidly shifting, highly tunable, and even simultaneous temporary assemblages of interacting unconscious cognitive modules. The discovery implies various animal taxa exhibiting behaviors we broadly recognize as conscious are, (...) in fact, expressing different forms of the same underlying phenomenon. The variety of possibilities suggests minds today may be only a small surviving fraction of ancient evolutionary radiations – bush phylogenies of consciousness pruned by selection and chance extinction. Although few traces of the radiations may be found in the fossil record, exaptations and vestiges are scattered across the living mind. (shrink)

Science aims to transform the subjectivity of individual observations and ideas into more objective and universal knowledge. Yet if there is any area in which first-person experience holds a particularly special and delicate role, it is the sciences of the mind. According to a widespread view, first-person methods were largely discarded from psychology after the fall of introspectionism a century ago and replaced by more objective behavioral measures, a step that some authors have begun to criticize. To examine whether these (...) views are sufficiently informed by actual scientific practice, we conducted a review of methodological approaches in the cognitive science literature. We found that reports of subjective experience are in fact still widely used in a broad variety of different experimental paradigms, both in studies that focus on subjective experience, and in those that make no explicit reference to it. Across these studies, we documented a diverse collection of approaches that leveraged first-person reports, ranging from button presses to unstructured interviews, while continuing to maximise experimental reproducibility. Common to these studies were subjects acting as sensors, intentionally communicating their experience to the experimenter, which we termed “second-person” methods. We conclude that, despite views to the contrary, first-person experience has always been and is still central to investigations of the mind even if it is not recognized as such. We suggest that the conversation ought to be reframed: instead of debating whether to accept subjects’ first-person knowledge we should discuss how best to do so. (shrink)

Contemporary literature on consciousness, with some exceptions, rarely considers the olfactory system. In this article the characteristics of olfactory consciousness, viewed from the standpoint of the phenomenal /access distinction, are examined relative to the major senses. The review details several qualitative differences in both olfactory P consciousness and A consciousness . The basis for these differences is argued to arise from the functions that the olfactory system performs and from the unique neural architecture needed to instantiate them. These data suggest, (...) at a minimum, that P and A consciousness are uniquely configured in olfaction and an argument can be made that the P and A distinction may not hold for this sensory system. (shrink)

Using an explicit task cuing paradigm, we tested whether masked cues can trigger task-set activation, which would suggest that unconsciously presented stimuli can impact cognitive control processes. Based on a critical assessment of previous findings on the priming of task-set activation, we present two experiments with a new method to approach this subject. Instead of using a prime, we varied the visibility of the cue. These cues either directly signaled particular tasks in Experiment 1, or certain task transitions in Experiment (...) 2. While both masked task and transition cues affected task choice, only task cues affected the speed of task performance. This observation suggests that task-specific stimulus–response rules can be activated only by masked cues that are uniquely associated with a particular task. Taken together, these results demonstrate that unconsciously presented stimuli have the power to activate corresponding task sets. (shrink)

Recent advances in philosophical thinking about consciousness, such as cognitive phenomenology and mereological analysis, provide a framework that facilitates using computational models to explore issues surrounding the nature of consciousness. Here we suggest that, in particular, studying the computational mechanisms of working memory and its cognitive control is highly likely to identify computational correlates of consciousness and thereby lead to a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness. We describe our recent computational models of human working memory and propose that (...) three computational correlates of consciousness follow from the results of this work: itinerant attractor sequences, top-down gating, and very fast weight changes. Our current investigation is focused on evaluating whether these three correlates are sufficient to create more complex working memory models that encompass compositionality and basic causal inference. We conclude that computational models of working memory are likely to be a fruitful approach to advancing our understanding of consciousness in general and in determining the long-term potential for development of an artificial consciousness specifically. (shrink)

While substantial progress has been made in the field known as artificial consciousness, at the present time there is no generally accepted phenomenally conscious machine, nor even a clear route to how one might be produced should we decide to try. Here, we take the position that, from our computer science perspective, a major reason for this is a computational explanatory gap: our inability to understand/explain the implementation of high-level cognitive algorithms in terms of neurocomputational processing. We explain how addressing (...) the computational explanatory gap can identify computational correlates of consciousness. We suggest that bridging this gap is not only critical to further progress in the area of machine consciousness, but would also inform the search for neurobiological correlates of consciousness and would, with high probability, contribute to demystifying the “hard problem” of understanding the mind–brain relationship. We compile a listing of previously proposed computational correlates of consciousness and, based on the results of recent computational modeling, suggest that the gating mechanisms associated with top-down cognitive control of working memory should be added to this list. We conclude that developing neurocognitive architectures that contribute to bridging the computational explanatory gap provides a credible and achievable roadmap to understanding the ultimate prospects for a conscious machine, and to a better understanding of the mind–brain problem in general. (shrink)

Event-related potential studies have attempted to discover the processes that underlie conscious visual perception by contrasting ERPs produced by stimuli that are consciously perceived with those that are not. Variability of the proposed ERP correlates of consciousness is considerable: the earliest proposed ERP correlate of consciousness coincides with sensory processes and the last one marks postperceptual processes. A negative difference wave called visual awareness negativity , typically observed around 200 ms after stimulus onset in occipitotemporal sites, gains strong support for (...) reflecting the processes that correlate with, and possibly enable, aware visual perception. Research suggests that the early parts of conscious processing can proceed independently of top-down attention, although top-down attention may modulate visual processing even before consciousness. Evidence implies that the contents of consciousness are provided by interactions in the ventral stream, but indispensable contributions from dorsal regions influence already low-level visual responses. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a sea change in thinking about emotion, which has gone from being seen as a disruptive force in human thought and action to being seen as an important source of situation- and goal-relevant information and evaluation, continuous with perception and cognition. Here I argue on philosophical and empirical grounds that the role of emotion in contributing to our ability to respond to reasons for action runs deeper still: The affective system is at the core of the (...) process of evaluatively modeling situations, actions, and outcomes, which is the foundation upon which rational deliberation and action can be built. Taking up this perspective affords new approaches to long-standing problems in the theory of reason-based action. (shrink)

Both the global workspace theory and Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, are central in the current debates about consciousness and the neural correlates of consciousness. In this article, a unifying global workspace model for phenomenal and access consciousness is proposed. In the model, recurrent neural interactions take place in distinct yet interacting access and phenomenal brain loops. The effectiveness of feedback signaling onto sensory cortical maps is emphasized for the neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Two forms of top-down (...) attention, attention for perception and attention for access, play differential roles for phenomenal and access consciousness. The model is implemented in a neural network form, with the simulation of single and multiple visual object processing, and of the attentional blink. (shrink)

This perspective examines the role of chemistry and molecular biology for a science of consciousness. Opposed to the consensus view, we argue that the molecular organization of biological systems is key to arrive at a thorough understanding of the dynamics correlated to the phenomenology of consciousness in complex organisms. This is indicated by the fact that the molecular sciences either provide one or more mechanisms directly related to phenomenology or otherwise describe the dynamics of the underlying substrate. In addition, we (...) discuss substrate-independence in information-processing theories of consciousness and the issue of combination in panpsychist theories of consciousness, both from the angle of the molecular sciences. In any case, molecular details matter. (shrink)

It is typically assumed that while we know other people’s mental states by observing and interpreting their behavior, we know our own mental states by introspection, i.e., without interpreting ourselves. In his latest book, The opacity of mind: An integrative theory of self-knowledge, Peter Carruthers (2011) argues against this assumption. He holds that findings from across the cognitive sciences strongly suggest that self-knowledge of conscious propositional attitudes such as intentions, judgments, and decisions involves a swift and unconscious process of self-interpretation (...) that utilizes the same sensory channels that we employ when working out other people’s mental states. I provide an overview of Carruthers’ book before discussing a pathological case that challenges his account of self-knowledge and mentioning empirical evidence that undermines his use of a particular kind of data in his case against introspection of conscious attitudes. (shrink)

By drawing on empirical evidence, Matt King and Peter Carruthers have recently argued that there are no conscious propositional attitudes, such as decisions, and that this undermines moral responsibility. Neil Levy responds to King and Carruthers, and claims that their considerations needn’t worry theorists of moral responsibility. I argue that Levy’s response to King and Carruthers’ challenge to moral responsibility is unsatisfactory. After that, I propose what I take to be a preferable way of dealing with their challenge. I offer (...) an account of moral responsibility that ties responsibility to consciously deciding to do X, as opposed to a conscious decision to do X. On this account, even if there are no conscious decisions, moral responsibility won’t be undermined. (shrink)

Résumé: La conscience est toujours conscience de quelque chose, généralement une chose autre qu’elle-même - mais quelle sorte de chose est donc la conscience, considérée en et pour elle-même? Naguère redoutable paradoxe qu’une science sérieuse abandonnait volontiers aux philosophes, la conscience a-t-elle été ramenée finalement à la condition d’un objet de science parmi les autres? Le développement d’une nouvelle «neuroscience de la conscience» depuis une vingtaine d’années est souvent présenté comme une avancée naturelle pour une science forte de son succès (...) dans l’explication des fonctions cognitives sur la base des mécanismes neuronaux du cerveau humain. Conçue, elle aussi, originairement, comme «science de la conscience», mais sur la base de l’immanence du sujet conscient à sa propre expérience vécue, la phénoménologie doit-elle réfréner son sens du paradoxe devant le projet de cette neuroscience de la conscience, pour ne pas être accusée d’irrationalisme? Faisant retour sur le dialogue Changeux-Ricœur, je relève les objections du phénoménologue à l’objectivation de notre expérience de la conscience sur la base de mécanismes corrélatifs dans le cerveau et j’examine sur l’exemple représentatif de la théorie neuronale de Changeux, Dehaene et al. dans quelle mesure cette critique phénoménologique garde une pertinence. Resumo: A consciência é sempre consciência de algo, geralmente algo diferente de si - mas que tipo de coisa é a consciência, considerada em si mesma? Paradoxo a pouco tempo temido de que uma ciência séria se entrega de bom grado aos filósofos, será que a consciência foi finalmente reduzida à condição de um objeto da ciência, dentre os demais? O desenvolvimento de uma nova “neurociência da consciência” por cerca de vinte anos é frequentemente apresentado como um avanço natural para uma ciência segura de seu sucesso na explicação de funções cognitivas baseadas nos mecanismos neurais do cérebro humano. Concebida, também, originalmente como uma “ciência da consciência”, mas com base na imanência do sujeito consciente à sua própria experiência vivida, a fenomenologia deve refrear seu sentido de paradoxo frente ao projeto da neurociência da consciência, para não ser acusada de irracionalismo? Retornando ao diálogo Changeux-Ricoeur, considero a crítica da objetivação fenomenológica da nossa experiência de consciência com base em mecanismos internos ao cérebro, e examino o exemplo representativo da teoria neuronal de Changeux e Dehaene et al., para avaliar até que ponto a crítica fenomenológica permanece relevante. (shrink)

The reality-virtuality continuum encompasses a multitude of objects, events and environments ranging from real-world multisensory inputs to interactive multisensory virtual simulators, in which sensory integration can involve very different combinations of both physical and digital inputs. These different ways of stimulating the senses can affect the consumer’s consciousness, potentially altering their judgements and behaviours. In this perspective paper, we explore how technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can, by generating and modifying the human sensorium, act on consumer consciousness. (...) We discuss the potential impact of this altered consciousness for consumer behaviour while, at the same time, considering how it may pave the way for further research. (shrink)

The Nagel inspired “something-it-is-like” conception of conscious experience remains a dominant approach in philosophy. In this paper I criticize a prevalent philosophical construal of SIL consciousness, one that understands SIL as a property of mental states rather than entities as a whole. I argue against thinking of SIL as a property of states, showing how such a view is in fact prevalent, under-warranted, and philosophically pernicious in that it often leads to an implausible reduction of conscious experience to qualia. I (...) then develop a holistic conception of SIL for entities and argue that it has at least equal pre-empirical warrant, is more conservative philosophically in that it decides less from the a priori “armchair,” and enjoys a fruitful two-way relationship with empirical work. (shrink)

The Nagel inspired “something-it-is-like” conception of conscious experience remains a dominant approach in philosophy. In this paper I criticize a prevalent philosophical construal of SIL consciousness, one that understands SIL as a property of mental states rather than entities as a whole. I argue against thinking of SIL as a property of states, showing how such a view is in fact prevalent, under-warranted, and philosophically pernicious in that it often leads to an implausible reduction of conscious experience to qualia. I (...) then develop a holistic conception of SIL for entities and argue that it has at least equal pre-empirical warrant, is more conservative philosophically in that it decides less from the a priori “armchair,” and enjoys a fruitful two-way relationship with empirical work. (shrink)

There is currently no consensus regarding what measures are most valid to demonstrate perceptual processing without awareness. Likewise, whether conscious perception and unconscious processing rely on independent mechanisms or lie on a continuum remains a matter of debate. Here, we addressed these issues by comparing the time courses of subjective reports, objective discrimination performance and response priming during meta-contrast masking, under similar attentional demands. We found these to be strikingly similar, suggesting that conscious perception and unconscious processing cannot be dissociated (...) by their time course. Our results also demonstrate that unconscious processing, indexed by response priming, occurs, and that objective discrimination performance indexes the same conscious processes as subjective visibility reports. Finally, our results underscore the role of attention by showing that how much attention the stimulus receives relative to the mask, rather than whether processing is measured by conscious discrimination or by priming, determines the time course of meta-contrast masking. (shrink)

One of the reasons why the Neural Correlates of Consciousness Program could appear attractive in the 1990s was that it seemed to disentangle theoretical and empirical problems. Theoretical disagreements could thus be sidestepped in order to focus on empirical research regarding the neural substrate of consciousness. One of the further consequences of this dissociation of empirical and theoretical questions was that fundamental questions regarding the Mind Body Problem or the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” could remain unresolved even if the search (...) for the neural correlates had been successful.Drawing on historical examples, a widely held consensus in the philosophy of science, and actual NCC research we argue that there is no such independence. Moreover, as the dependence between the theoretical and the empirical level is mutual, empirical progress will go hand in hand with theoretical development. Thus, contrary to what the original NCC program suggested, we conclude that NCC research may significantly take advantage from and contribute to theoretical progress in our explanation and understanding of consciousness. Eventually, this might even contribute to a solution of the Hard Problem of Consciousness. (shrink)

According to a long-standing belief, introspection provides privileged access to the mind, while objective methods, which we denote as “extrospection”, suffer from basic epistemic deficits. Here we will argue that neither an introspective privilege exists nor does extrospection suffer from such deficits.We will focus on two entailments of an introspective privilege: first, such a privilege would require that introspective evidence prevails in cases of conflict with extrospective information. However, we will show that this is not the case: extrospective claims can (...) prevail in cases of conflict. These conflicts are resolved by an inference to the explanation that best accounts for the available evidence. This explanation may speak in favor of extrospection.Second, given an introspective privilege, the development of extrospective measurement techniques should be restricted by the accuracy of introspective reports. We will argue that this problem is part of a more general issue that comes up with the establishment of measurement in the natural sciences. We will identify three strategies that have proven successful in dealing with the problem in the natural sciences. It will turn out that all these strategies are available for extrospective measurement as well. Consequently, the insufficiencies of introspective reports do not impose a limit on the accuracy of extrospective measurement methods.We conclude that neither an introspective privilege nor basic extrospective deficits exist. This does not mean that extrospection will ever replace introspection. Rather, both approaches provide independent and indispensable forms of epistemic access to the mind. (shrink)

I argue that newborn infants are conscious. I propose a methodology for investigating infant consciousness, and I present two approaches for determining whether newborns are conscious. First, I consider behavioral and neurobiological markers of consciousness. Second, I investigate the major theories of consciousness, including both philosophical and scientific theories, and I discuss what they predict about infant consciousness.

Priority of the “self” is thought to be evolutionarily advantageous. However, evidence for this priority has been sparse. In this study, subjects performed a gender categorization task on self- and non-self target faces preceded by either congruent or incongruent periliminal or subliminal primes. We found that subliminal primes induced a priming effect only on self target faces. This discovery of a self-specific priming effect suggests that functional specificity for faces may include timing as well as spatial adaptations.

The distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness is central to debates about consciousness and its neural correlates. However, this distinction has often been limited to the domain of perceptual experiences. On the basis of dream phenomenology and neuroscientific findings this paper suggests a theoretical framework which extends this distinction to dreaming, also in terms of plausible neural correlates. In this framework, phenomenal consciousness is involved in both waking perception and dreaming, whereas access consciousness is weakened, but not fully eliminated, during (...) dreaming. However, access consciousness is more active during lucid dreaming. The proposed framework accounts for different aspects of dream phenomenology, including levels of integration of perceptual, cognitive and affective features in dreams, bizarreness, dream amnesia and the occurrence of meta-awareness and accessibility in lucid dreaming. Self-related experiences and their neural substrates are suggested to be differently involved in waking cognition and dreaming. Further, phenomenal consciousness during both waking and dream experiences involve widespread recurrent interactions and convergence-divergence zones in the thalamo-cortico-limbic system, activated before conscious access in global workspace areas. Finally, we discuss the relationships of the proposed framework with other neurocognitive theories and models of consciousness and major theories of dreaming, and propose novel experimental predictions. (shrink)

Unconscious stimuli can influence participants’ motor behavior as well as more complex mental processes. Previous cue-priming experiments demonstrated that masked cues can modulate endogenous shifts of spatial attention as measured by choice reaction time tasks. Here, we applied a signal detection task with masked luminance targets to determine the source and the scope of effects of masked stimuli. Target-detection performance was modulated by prime-cue congruency, indicating that prime-cue congruency modulates signal enhancement at early levels of target processing. These effects, however, (...) were only found when the prime was perceptually similar to the cue indicting that primes influence early target processing in an indirect way by facilitating cue processing. Together with previous research we conclude that masked stimuli can modulate perceptual and post-central levels of processing. Findings mark a new limit of the effects of unconscious stimuli which seem to have a smaller scope than conscious stimuli. (shrink)