Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Will there be a neuroscientific theory of consciousness?
Section snippets
Two kinds of consciousness
In a recent paper, Ned Block[6]has stressed a well-known but important distinction7, 8between what he calls phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness (see Table 1). A state is phenomenally conscious (`p-conscious') if it has `experiential properties', that is, if there is something `it is like' to be in that state for the subject of consciousness. A state is access-conscious (`a-conscious'), on the other hand, if it has relevance for reasoning and control of action, owing to its
The persistence of the explanatory gap
The explanatory gap argument concerning p-consciousness leads to the claim that a description of the physical (or physiological) correlates of a p-conscious state like, say, a perception of red does not explain why that p-conscious state has this specific quality and not an other (e.g. that of perceiving green) or no phenomenal quality at all. The physical, or neurophysiological, story for a perception of red can only state the correlation or coincidence of a physical state with a p-conscious
Consciousness and its descriptions
What could it mean for p-consciousness to be `description-dependent'? According to Rorty[1], description-dependency is relationality—in contrast to intrinsicality—of a certain property (e.g. the property of being conscious). Rorty applies an epistemological definition of `intrinsicality': a property of an object is epistemologically intrinsic if we know the object to have the property independently of our knowledge of how to describe that object. A property is epistemologically relational, on
Why neuroscientists should not mind the `explanatory gap'
If the property of being p-conscious can be conceived as a relational, description-dependent property, then p-conscious states appear as rather ephemeral phenomena that might change their character with a modification of cultural, historical and scientific conditions. Once we have realized that, we might just lose interest in the scientific explanation of these phenomena and find that we have been dazzled by the seemingly impressive and enigmatic `subjective character' of p-conscious states. As
Outstanding questions
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Is the validity of the explanatory gap intuition decidable on scientific or philosophical grounds?
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Has cognitive neuroscience already begun to change the concept of consciousness?
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Can phenomenal consciousness be construed as a description-dependent property?
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Is there convincing evidence of a modification of phenomenal aspects of consciousness by access consciousness?
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Can culture create or merely influence phenomenal consciousness?
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