A natural account of phenomenal consciousness
Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 34 (1):39-59 (2001)
Abstract |
Physicalists commonly argue that conscious experiences are nothing more than states of the brain, and that conscious qualia are observer-independent, physical properties of the external world. Although this assumes the 'mantle of science,' it routinely ignores the findings of science, for example in sensory physiology, perception, psychophysics, neuropsychology and comparative psychology. Consequently, although physicalism aims to naturalise consciousness, it gives an unnatural account of it. It is possible, however, to develop a natural, nonreductive, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. This paper introduces such a model and how it construes the nature of conscious experience. Within this model the physical world as perceived is viewed as part of conscious experience not apart from it. While in everyday life we treat this phenomenal world as if it is the "physical world", it is really just one biologically useful representation of what the world is like that may differ in many respects from the world described by physics. How the world as perceived relates to the world as described by physics can be investigated by normal science . This model of consciousness appears to be consistent with both third-person evidence of how the brain works and with first-person evidence of what it is like to have a given experience. According to the reflexive model, conscious experiences are really how they seem
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Keywords | Consciousness Metaphysics Naturalism Phenomenology Physicalism Qualia reflexive model of perception reflexive monism |
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Consciousness, Brain, and the Physical World.Max Velmans - 1990 - Philosophical Psychology 3 (1):77-99.
Where Experiences Are: Dualist, Physicalist, Enactive and Reflexive Accounts of Phenomenal Consciousness.Max Velmans - 2007 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (4):547-563.
Conceptualizing Physical Consciousness.James Tartaglia - 2013 - Philosophical Psychology 26 (6):817-838.
Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia.David J. Chalmers - 1995 - In Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience. Ferdinand Schoningh. pp. 309--328.
A Reflexive Science of Consciousness.Max Velmans - 1993 - In Gregory Bock & Joan Marsh (eds.), Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Consciousness: Ciba Foundation Symposium 174. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 81-99.
Is the World in the Brain, or the Brain in the World? (A Commentary on Lehar, S. Gestalt Isomorphism and the Primacy of Subjective Conscious Experience: A Gestalt Bubble Model, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in Press).Professor Max Velmans - 2003 - Velmans, Professor Max (2003) is the World in the Brain, or the Brain in the World? (A Commentary on Lehar, S. Gestalt Isomorphism and the Primacy of Subjective Conscious Experience.
Phenomenal Properties: The Epistemology and Metaphysics of Qualia.Andrew R. Bailey - 1998 - Dissertation, University of Calgary
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A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World.Gregg H. Rosenberg - 2004 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Phenomenal Consciousness and the Phenomenal World.Amie Thomasson - 2008 - The Monist 91 (2):191-214.
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2009-01-28
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