A breathtaking look at the new science that can track consciousness deep in the brain How does our brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events (...) behind a conscious state. We can now pin down the neurons that fire when a person reports becoming aware of a piece of information and understand the crucial role unconscious computations play in how we make decisions. The emerging theory enables a test of consciousness in animals, babies, and those with severe brain injuries. A joyous exploration of the mind and its thrilling complexities, Consciousness and the Brain will excite anyone interested in cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifying consciousness. (shrink)

We have a much better understanding of physics than we do of consciousness. I consider ways in which intrinsically mental aspects of fundamental ontology might induce modifications of the known laws of physics, or whether they could be relevant to accounting for consciousness if no such modifications exist. I suggest that our current knowledge of physics should make us skeptical of hypothetical modifications of the known rules, and that without such modifications it’s hard to imagine how intrinsically mental (...) aspects could play a useful explanatory role. Draft version of a paper submitted to Journal of Consciousness Studies, special issue responding to Philip Goff’s Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. (shrink)

An electrifying introduction to complexity theory, the science of how complex systems behave--from cells to human beings, ecosystems, the known universe, and beyond--that profoundly reframes our understanding and illuminates our interconnectedness. Nothing in the universe is more complex than life. Throughout the skies, in oceans, and across lands, life is endlessly on the move. In its myriad forms--from cells to human beings, social structures, and ecosystems--life is open-ended, evolving, unpredictable, yet adaptive and self-sustaining. Complexity theory addresses the mysteries that animate (...) science, philosophy, and metaphysics: how this teeming array of existence, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, is in fact a seamless living whole and what our place, as conscious beings, is within it. Physician, scientist, and philosopher Neil Theise makes accessible this "theory of being," one of the pillars of modern science, and its holistic view of human existence. He notes the surprising underlying connections within a universe that is itself one vast complex system--between ant colonies and the growth of forests, cancer and economic bubbles, murmurations of starlings and crowds walking down the street. The implications of complexity theory are profound, providing insight into everything from the permeable boundaries of our bodies to the nature of consciousness. Notes on Complexity is an invitation to trade our limited, individualistic view for the expansive perspective of a universe that is dynamic, cohesive, and alive--a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Theise takes us to the exhilarating frontiers of human knowledge and in the process restores wonder and meaning to our experience of the everyday"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

(2013). Does consciousness entail subjectivity? The puzzle of thought insertion. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 291-314. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.625117.

This paper considers the Cartesian theatre as a metaphor for the virtual reality models that the brain uses to make inferences about the world. This treatment derives from our attempts to understand dreaming and waking consciousness in terms of free energy minimization. The idea here is that the Cartesian theatre is not observed by an internal audience but furnishes a theatre in which fictive narratives and fantasies can be rehearsed and tested against sensory evidence. We suppose the brain is (...) driven by the imperative to infer the causes of its sensory samples; in much the same way as scientists are compelled to test hypotheses about experimental data. This recapitulates Helmholtz's notion of unconscious inference and Gregory's treatment of perception as hypothesis testing. However, we take this further and consider the active sampling of the world as the gathering of confirmatory evidence for hypotheses based on our virtual reality. The ensuing picture of consciousness resolves a number of seemingly hard problems in consciousness research and is internally consistent with current thinking in systems neuroscience and theoretical neurobiology. In this formalism, there is a dualism that distinguishes between the process of inference and the process that entails inference. This separation is reflected by the distinction between beliefs and the physical brain states that encode them. This formal approach allows us to appeal to simple but fundamental theorems in information theory and statistical thermodynamics that dissolve some of the mysterious aspects of consciousness. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The elephant in the room -- Crabs and octopuses -- The central intelligence of a frog -- The cerebral cortex and consciousness -- Social consciousness -- Yoda and Darth: how can we find -- Consciousness in the brain? -- The hard problem and other perspectives on consciousness -- Conscious machines -- Uploading minds -- How to build visual consciousness.

It is often assumed that perceptual experience provides evidence about the external world. But much perception can occur unconsciously, as in cases of masked priming or blindsight. Does unconscious perception provide evidence as well? Many theorists maintain that it cannot, holding that perceptual experience provides evidence in virtue of its conscious character. Against such views, I challenge here both the necessity and, perhaps more controversially, the sufficiency of consciousness for perception to provide evidence about the external world. In addition (...) to motivating and defending the idea that unconscious perception can and does often provide evidence, I observe that whether or not perceptual phenomenology is relevant to the evidentiary status of perception depends on the nature of consciousness. And I argue that a well-supported theory of consciousness—higher-order thought theory—invites a striking conclusion: that perceptual phenomenology is not on its own sufficient to provide for evidence of the external world. (shrink)

Does the assumption of a weak form of computational functionalism, according to which the right form of neural computation is sufficient for consciousness, entail that a digital computational simulation of such neural computations is conscious? Or must this computational simulation be implemented in the right way, in order to replicate consciousness? From the perspective of Karl Friston’s free energy principle, self-organising systems (such as living organisms) share a set of properties that could be realised in artificial systems, but (...) are not instantiated by computers with a classical (von Neumann) architecture. I argue that at least one of these properties, viz. a certain kind of causal flow, can be used to draw a distinction between systems that merely simulate, and those that actually replicate consciousness. (shrink)

Objective correlates—behavioral, functional, and neural—provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the ‘fallacy of misplaced objectivity’: the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically— its subjective properties—not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be (...) magical rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness presents a distinctive explanatory problem. Some regard this problem as ‘hard’, which has troubling implications for the science and metaphysics of consciousness. Some regard it as ‘easy’, which ignores the special explanatory difficulties that consciousness offers. Others are unable to decide between these two uncomfortable positions. All three camps assume that the problem of consciousness is either easy or hard. I argue against this disjunction and suggest that the problem may be ‘tricky’—that is, partly (...) easy and partly hard. This possibility emerges when we recognise that consciousness raises two explanatory questions. The Consciousness Question concerns why a subject is conscious rather than unconscious. The Character Question concerns why a conscious subject’s experience has the phenomenology it has rather than some other. I explore the possibility of one or other of these explanatory challenges being hard and the other easy, and consider the dialectical ramifications this has for all sides of the debate. (shrink)

This paper explores whether consciousness can exist without attention. This is a hot topic in philosophy of mind and cognitive science due to the popularity of theories that hold attention to be necessary for consciousness. The discovery of a form of consciousness that exists without the influence of attention would require a change in the way that many global workspace theorists, for example, understand the role and function of consciousness. Against this understanding, at least three forms (...) of consciousness have been argued to exist without attention: perceptual gist, imagistic consciousness, and phenomenal consciousness. After first arguing that the evidence is inconclusive on the question of whether these forms of consciousness exist without attention, I here present a fourth form of consciousness that is likely to be more successful: conscious entrainment. I argue that conscious entrainment is a form of consciousness associated with skilled behavior in which attention is sometimes absent. (shrink)

In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...) We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

If I am aware that p, say, that it is raining, is it the case that I must be aware that I am aware that p? Does introspective or object-awareness entail the apprehension of mental states as being of some kind or another: self-monitoring or intentional? That is, are cognitive events implicitly self-aware or is “self-awareness” just another term for metacognition? Not surprisingly, intuitions on the matter vary widely. This paper proposes a novel solution to this classical debate by reframing (...) the problem of self-knowledge in terms of the relation between phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge. Concepts of consciousness such as “introspective awareness” and “reflexive self-awareness” are grounded in phenomenal experiences rather than physical events and processes. As such they yield a different kind of self-knowledge than what can be gained by applying externalist conceptual schemas to understanding the mind. I argue that Dharmakīrti’s theory of content can be seen as endorsing the efficacy of phenomenal experience as a vehicle for self-knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract. This introductory chapter was written in 1996, for a new book of review articles on the emerging science of consciousness, specifically aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students by experts in the relevant fields. Following on a brief history, the chapter moves on to definitions of consciousness and background philosophical issues, and then introduces a unified, non-reductionist scientific approach. It then summarises major issues for studies of consciousness in cognitive psychology, including studies of attention, memory, the extent (...) of preconscious analysis and the relation of consciousness more generally to human information processing. It then turns to the neuropsychology of consciousness, starting with some apparent neural requirements for the transition from preconscious to conscious states, various clinical dissociations of consciousness, conditions for integration (or binding) and, finally, clinical applications, including different forms of mind/body interaction and evidence for the causal efficacy of mental states. The chapter concludes that while some of the ancient problems of consciousness remain unsolved, its study has become the subject of a rapidly developing science. (shrink)

Mysticism and Guilt-Consciousness in Schelling's Philosophical Development was Paul Tillich's 1912 dissertation for the licentiate in theology from the University of Halle. He published it the same year and it reappears in the first volume of Tillich's collected works in German.

Which beings have moral status? I argue that moral status requires some capacity for hedonic feelings of pleasure or displeasure. David Chalmers rejects this view on the grounds that it denies moral status to Vulcans, which are defined as conscious creatures with no capacity for hedonic feelings. On his more inclusive view, all conscious beings have moral status. We agree that only conscious beings have moral status, but we disagree about how to explain this. I argue that we cannot explain (...) why consciousness is necessary for moral status without denying that it is sufficient for moral status. Hence, we cannot exclude unconscious zombies without excluding conscious Vulcans too. (shrink)

The paper contains an argument against functionalist theories of consciousness. The argument exploits an intuition to the effect that parts of an individual's brain that are not in use at a time t, can have no bearing on whether that individual is conscious at t. After presenting the argument, I defend it against two possible objections, and then distinguish it from two arguments to which it appears, on the surface to be similar.

The essence of consciousness, the ability to know self, is not something that can be detected with the aid of physical devices. Therefore, the study of consciousness cannot be limited to the methods of sciences. A human being is the “detector” of his or her own self and so a human being is in a sort of space with both physical and nonphysical dimensions. The latter is what C. S. Lewis calls “Supernature.” Conceptual thought, free will, moral autonomy, (...) the notion of God, etc. are all unique to humans and cannot be reduced to the purely physical. Of course, different levels of conscious experience are related to brain-states but self cannot be reduced to such physical states. It is analogous to electrical charge that must always be accompanied by mass but cannot be reduced to it. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness poses a puzzle for philosophy of science. This arises from two facts: It is common for philosophers (and some scientists) to take its existence to be phenomenologically obvious and yet modern science arguably has little (if anything) to say about it. And, this despite 20 years of work targeting the phenomenon in what I will refer to as the new science of consciousness. How has such a supposedly evident part of our world remained beyond our scientific (...) understanding? One possibility is that there is no such phenomenon. This possibility, however, is undercut by the claim that phenomenal consciousness is phenomenologically obvious. In this paper I argue that this claim is mistaken. Distinguishing between the qualities we are phenomenologically aware of and the classification of those qualities as being mental (as qualia), I present both empirical evidence and theoretical reasons to deny that the latter is phenomenologically obvious. (shrink)

The Great Illusion takes a scientific look at the brain itself, presenting research that supports the naturalistic stance that the mind is identical to the brain. Singh argues that if we take seriously the idea that the mind is the brain then it follows logically that free will must be an illusion, that there can be no consciousness independent of the brain, and that there can be no substantial self that exists independently from the brain. He further argues that (...) there can be no such thing as absolute moral responsibility. (shrink)

A stream of conscious experience is extremely contextual; it is impacted by sensory stimuli, drives and emotions, and the web of associations that link, directly or indirectly, the subject of experience to other elements of the individual's worldview. The contextuality of one's conscious experience both enhances and constrains the contextuality of one's behavior. Since we cannot know first-hand the conscious experience of another, it is by way of behavioral contextuality that we make judgements about whether or not, and to what (...) extent, a system is conscious. Thus we believe that a deep understanding of contextuality is vital to the study of consciousness. Methods have been developed for handling contextuality in the microworld of quantum particles. Our goal has been to investigate the extent to which these methods can be used to analyze contextuality in conscious experience. (shrink)

This paper (in English) highlights a hitherto neglected feature of Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit: its critique of the content of our basic categorial concepts. It focusses on Hegel’s semantics of cognitive reference in ‘Sense Certainty’ and his use of this semantics also in ‘Perception’ and ‘Force and Understanding’. Explicating these points enables us to understand how Hegel criticizes Pyrrhonian Scepticism on internal grounds.

I will be talking today about the limits of cognitive science. I won’t be talking about contingent shortcomings that could perhaps be remedied with, say, more time, resources, or ingenuity. Rather, I will be concerned with limitations that are “baked into” the very enterprise. The main blind spot, I will argue, is consciousness—but not for the reasons typically given. Current work in philosophy of mind can sometimes seem arcane, so my goal today will be to answer the question: why (...) bother? I have spent a whole book and several articles trying to make sense of the qualitative dimension of consciousness, but there is no point in trying to sell a solution unless we have first established (independently of any academic literature) that there is a real problem to solve. So, if I can’t convey my position in under an hour, I can at least convey the issue that motivates it. (shrink)

The British idealist philosopher Bernard Bosanquet argues that the legitimacy of the law and the obligation to obey the law are rooted in what he calls the ‘real will.’ This notion of the real will, however, has often been claimed to be problematic. In this paper, I argue that the notion of the real or general will can be made clearer and, arguably, more satisfactory, if one looks at Bosanquet’s notion of aesthetic consciousness. I provide a short account of (...) Bosanquet’s views on art and aesthetic consciousness and identify a number of points on which aesthetic consciousness and awareness of the real will are, arguably, similar. This similarity suggests that the notion of the real will may be more plausible – or, at least, less problematic – than critics have alleged. (shrink)