Abstract
How can we investigate the foundations of consciousness? In addressing this question, we will focus on the two main strategies that authors have adopted so far. On the one hand, there is research aimed at characterizing a specific content, which should account for conscious states. We may call this the content approach. On the other hand, one finds the processing approach, which proposes to look for a particular way of processing to account for consciousness. . Our aim, in this paper, is to develop arguments for the latter approach. We focus on a criticism of Jesse Prinz’s AIR theory of consciousness. We have chosen Prinz’s theory because it incorporates features of both the content and processing approaches, and discussing it will therefore allow us to compare the advantages and downsides of both. Our argument will focus in particular on the notion of intermediate-level. We will discuss how Prinz characterizes the intermediate-level according to a content approach, and argue that such a characterization is inadequate. Finally, we will argue in favor of processing approach to the problem of consciousness, which also accounts for the massive interaction of top-down and bottom-up processes in the brain. Even though consciousness remains an unsolved riddle, we claim that this is the best path towards a solution.
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Notes
AIR stands for Attended Intermediate-level Representations. See discussion below.
Accordingly, we leave the question of whether other systems can be conscious or not open.
Adopting Prinz’s terminology, we shall use “consciousness”, “conscious experience” and “phenomenal experience” interchangeably.
For reasons of space, we only briefly discuss reflexive theories of consciousness. Some are described as a branch of HOT theories (Gennaro 2004). These of course run into the same problems as already discussed. The most interesting new variant is the reflexive theory proposed by Kriegel (2009). He argues that the two components which constitute consciousness of a person, i.e., the outer-directed awareness to an object O and an awareness of oneself, are not related to each other as independent mental states, but are part of one and the same mental state. Consciousness is then mainly explained as self-consciousness (even if it is understood as low-level self-awareness). If this is understood as a content theory, then is must be the self-relation which is the essential content constituting consciousness. But we have a lot of self-related information, which remains unconscious, e.g., the body temperature regulation and the breath regulation contain essentially self-related information. This information remains unconscious unless (e.g., in the case of heart beat) we aim to attend to it. However, attention is not itself a specific content, but a specific process acting upon contents. Thus, if the theory is interpreted as a content view, it is unconvincing. If it is interpreted as a process theory, we see no problems, and this supports our line of argument in the present paper.
For a review, see the paragraph on neural theories in Van Gulick 2014.
We shall sometimes use “to attend” transitively to mirror Prinz’s own usage of the verb. In general, at the psychological level, a stimulus (or part of it) is attended to when it is object of the focus of attention. At the functional level, a representation is attended to when its content is processed in a certain way. In the present framework, the psychological notion is considered to be reducible to the functional one.
This point is not preserved in Prinz’s theory. According to AIR theory, the high level of representation is still modality-specific; see Prinz 2006, p. 453.
Prinz considers Marr’s tripartition to be too simple to account for the complexity of visual processing as nowadays described by neuroscience. We do not discuss the validity of this claim here. Since we are interested in Prinz’s theory, for the sake of the argument, we take his evaluation of Marr for granted.
This claim comes with the seemingly problematic entailment that only intermediate-level representations can be attended (see discussion below).
Throughout this paper, “bottom-up” is used to refer to a stream of neural processes that runs from levels/areas lower in the perceptual hierarchy to levels/areas higher in the perceptual hierarchy. Conversely, “top-down” is used to refer to a stream of neural processes that runs in the opposite direction.
See also Vetter and Newen 2014.
This interpretation is based on an inference to the best explanation and shared by, for example, Macpherson 2012 and Stokes 2013.
Prinz (2006, p. 456) points at this solution.
Prinz endorse this claim as a core part of his discussion; see Prinz 2012, p. 78.
See Prinz 2006, pp. 446–49, for discussion of this example for unconscious perception and p. 456 for the connection to consciousness.
Functional specialization is all that is needed to account for the empirical evidence appealed to by Prinz in favor of the intermediate-level hypothesis: when one area is impeded, its contribution to interactive processing is absent, therefore it can neither be included in the content nor be consciously perceived.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Peter Brössel and Tobias Schlicht for many very helpful discussions.
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Marchi, F., Newen, A. The cognitive foundations of visual consciousness: Why should we favour a processing approach?. Phenom Cogn Sci 15, 247–264 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-015-9425-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-015-9425-z