Consciousness in experimental subjects is typically inferred from reports and other forms of voluntary behaviour. A wealth of everyday experience confirms that healthy subjects do not ordinarily behave in these ways unless they are conscious. Investigation of consciousness in vegetative state patients has been based on the search for neural evidence that such broad functional capacities are preserved in some vegetative state patients. We call this the standard approach. To date, the results of the standard approach have suggested that some (...) vegetative state patients might indeed be conscious, although they fall short of being demonstrative. The fact that some vegetative state patients show evidence of consciousness according to the standard approach is remarkable, for the standard approach to consciousness is rather conservative, and leaves open the pressing question of how to ascertain whether patients who fail such tests are conscious or not. We argue for a cluster-based ‘natural kind’ methodology that is adequate to that task, both as a replacement for the approach that currently informs research into the presence or absence of consciousness in vegetative state patients and as a methodology for the science of consciousness more generally. 1. Introduction2. The Vegetative State3. The Standard Approach4. The Natural Kind Methodology5. Is Consciousness a Special Case? 5.1 Is consciousness a natural kind?5.2 A special obstacle?6. Conclusion. (shrink)

Recent neuroscientific evidence brings into question the conclusion that all aspects of consciousness are gone in patients who have descended into a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Here we summarize the evidence from human brain imaging as well as neurological damage in animals and humans suggesting that some form of consciousness can survive brain damage that commonly causes PVS. We also raise the issue that neuroscientific evidence indicates that raw emotional feelings (primary-process affects) can exist without any cognitive awareness of those (...) feelings. Likewise, the basic brain mechanisms for thirst and hunger exist in brain regions typically not damaged by PVS. If affective feelings can exist without cognitive awareness of those feelings, then it is possible that the instinctual emotional actions and pain "reflexes" often exhibited by PVS patients may indicate some level of mentality remaining in PVS patients. Indeed, it is possible such raw affective feelings are intensified when PVS patients are removed from life-supports. They may still experience a variety of primary-process affective states that could constitute forms of suffering. If so, withdrawal of life-support may violate the principle of nonmaleficence and be tantamount to inflicting inadvertent "cruel and unusual punishment" on patients whose potential distress, during the process of dying, needs to be considered in ethical decision-making about how such individuals should be treated, especially when their lives are ended by termination of life-supports. Medical wisdom may dictate the use of more rapid pharmacological forms of euthanasia that minimize distress than the de facto euthanasia of life-support termination that may lead to excruciating feelings of pure thirst and other negative affective feelings in the absence of any reflective awareness. (shrink)

It appears that consciousness science is progressing soundly, in particular in its search for the neural correlates of consciousness. There are two main approaches to this search, one is content-based (focusing on the contrast between conscious perception of, e.g., faces vs. houses), the other is state-based (focusing on overall conscious states, e.g., the contrast between dreamless sleep vs. the awake state). Methodological and conceptual considerations of a number of concrete studies show that both approaches are problematic: the content-based approach seems (...) to set aside crucial aspects of consciousness; and the state-based approach seems over-inclusive in a way that is hard to rectify without losing sight of the crucial conscious-unconscious contrast. Consequently, the search for the neural correlates of consciousness is in need of new experimental paradigms. (shrink)

The representational nature of human cognition and thought in general has been a source of controversies. This is particularly so in the context of studies of unconscious cognition, in which representations tend to be ontologically and structurally segregated with regard to their conscious status. However, it appears evolutionarily and developmentally unwarranted to posit such segregations, as,otherwise, artifact structures and ontologies must be concocted to explain them from the viewpoint of the human cognitive architecture. Here, from a by-and-large Classical cognitivist viewpoint, (...) I show why this segregation is wrong, and elaborate on the need to postulate an ontological and structural continuity between unconscious and conscious representations. Specifically, I hypothesize that this continuity is to be found in the symbolic-based interplay between the syntax and the semantics of thought, and I propose a model of human information processing characterized by the integration of syntactic and semantic representations. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel macht von der Möglichkeit Gebrauch, das Phänomen des Bewusstseins neurowissenschaftlich zu erklären, und geht der Frage nach, wie eine solche Erklärung wohl auszusehen hätte. Der Verfasser widmet sich konkret der These, dass jeder Erfahrung ein repräsentatives neurales System zugrunde liegt, das als Supervenienzgrundlage dieser Erfahrung dient. Diese Hypothese wird im weiteren Verlauf als minimale Supervenienz-These bezeichnet. Nach Meinung des Autors kann diese These auf zweierlei Weisen verstanden werden; dementsprechend ist von einer lokalistischen und einer holistischen Lesart die Rede. (...) Lokalistische Theorien versuchen, die minimale Supervenienzgrundlage einer spezifischen Erfahrung zu ermitteln, während sie Fragen über die Natur des Bewusstseins von Lebewesen beiseite lassen und die Neuralbasis des Bewusstseins lediglich als kausal-notwendige Hintergrundvoraussetzung für eine partikuläre Bewusstseinserfahrung werten. Holisten hingegen räumen dem Bewusstsein von Lebewesen Vorrang ein und behaupten, dass partikuläre Bewusstseinszustände nur im Rahmen von Deutungen ebendieses Bewusstseins erklärt werden können. Nach Meinung des Autors muss jegliche wissenschaftliche Deutung des Bewusstseins jenem Faktor Rechnung tragen, den er als minimale Wahrnehmung des Selbst bezeichnet und das jedem Bewusstseinszustand intrinsisch ist. Holistische Theorien sind am besten geeignet, diesen Umstand zu verändern. Der Artikel schließt mit der These, dass die sog. Dynamisch-Sensomotorische Deutung des Bewusstseins mit der holistischen Erklärung der Neuralbasis des Bewusstseins kombiniert werden kann. Eine solchermaßen kombinierte Sichtweise korrigiert den Widerspruch bezüglich der These von der minimalen Supervenienz, die bei einigen prominenten Befürwortern der DSM These zu finden ist. Sie ermöglicht ebenfalls einen Rahmen für die Entwicklung einer neurowissenschaftlichen Deutung der These von der minimalen Wahrnehmung des Selbst. (shrink)

U članku se kroz višedisciplinarni pristup kognitivnih znanosti proučava osobito ljudsko iskustvo povezano s religioznim doživljajem stvarnosti, koje se u tradiciji discipline povijesti religija naziva ‘iskustvo svetoga’. U skladu s teorijom emergencije, predlaže se definicija iskustva svetoga kao stanja svijesti sa subjektivnom kvalitetom integracije, specifičnim neurološkim korelatom i funkcionalnim obilježjima. Emergentne teorije svijesti pružaju ontološki ujednačeno tumačenje iskustava svetoga nudeći »naravna« objašnjenja bez odricanja njihove fenomenološke subjektivnosti. Prijenos iskustva svetoga iz unitarnoga, svojevrsnog intencionalno neobojenoga stanja, u izrecivi jezični kôd intencionalno (...) relevantnih pojmova sa sveprožimajućim utjecajima na opojmljivanje svijeta razmatra se pomoću kognitivne jezične teorije u tradiciji Johnsona i Lakoffa. Sposobnost izricanja značenja iskustva svetoga sagledava se kao emergentno svojstvo pojmovnog procesuiranja metaforičkoga razmišljanja uvjetovanoga utjelovljenošću uma i kulturalnim odrednicama. Predloženi pristup omogućuje tumačenje nastanka složenih mitoloških i kulturalnih modela temeljem iskustva svetoga, ali i ukazuje na njegovu kulturalnu neuvjetovanost zadanu nediskurzivnom naravi samog iskustva.In this article a multidisciplinary approach of cognitive sciences is employed for the analysis of a special category of human experience related to the religious understanding of the world, termed according to the History of Religion as the ‘experience of sacred’. The experience of sacred is defined as the state of consciousness with a subjective quality of integration, a specific neural correlate and functional features. Emergentist theory of consciousness provides ontologically consistent perspective offering a “natural” explanation for this type of experience without denying its subjective phenomenology. The linguistic expression of the experience is examined in the light of Johnson’s and Lakoff’s cognitive linguistic theory. The linguistic competence enabling the expression of the sacred experience is defined as the emergent property of conceptual processing of metaphorical thinking shaped by the embodied mind. This approach explains the seminal role of the experience of sacred in the formation of complex mythological and cultural models, but also points to its non discursive nature. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of a neuroscientific explanation of consciousness, and what such an explanation might look like. More specifically, I will be concerned with the claim that for any given experience there is neural representational system that constitutes the minimal supervenience base of that experience. I will call this hypothesis the minimal supervenience thesis. I argue that the minimal supervenience thesis is subject to two readings, which I call the localist and holist readings. Localist theories seek to identify (...) the minimal supervenience base for specific experiences. They sideline questions about the nature of creature consciousness, treating the neural basis of creature consciousness as merely a causally necessary background condition for a particular conscious experience. Holists on the other hand prioritise creature consciousness and argue that we can only account for particular states of consciousness in the context of an account of creature consciousness. I argue that any scientific explanation of consciousness must account for what I will call a minimal sense of self that is intrinsic to every conscious state. Holist theories are best able to accommodate this feature. I end by arguing that the Dynamic Sensorimotor account of consciousness can be combined with a holist account of the neural basis of consciousness. Such a combination of views corrects for the opposition to the minimal supervenience thesis found in some prominent defenders of the DSM account . It also provides a framework for developing a neuroscientific account of the minimal sense of self. (shrink)