The identity of conscious states and brain states must remain a mystery until we find a way of characterising both sides of the equation in terms that have the same ‘dimensions’. In this paper I stress the need for ‘dual currency concepts’ that not only are but can be seen to be as appropriate for talking about, say, the experience of pain as for talking about the corresponding working of the brain. In the light of evolutionary theory I make a (...) radically new proposal for what the common dimension is, centred on the idea of ‘authorship’. (shrink)

Brain-centered theories of consciousness seem to face insuperable difficulties. While some philosophers now doubt that the hard problem of consciousness will ever be solved, others call for radically new approaches to conscious experience. In this article I resurrect a largely forgotten approach to consciousness known as neorealism. According to neorealism, consciousness is merely a part, or cross-section, of the environment. Neorealism implies that all conscious experiences, veridical or otherwise, exist outside of the brain and are wholly independent of being perceived (...) or not; nonveridical perceptions of the environment over an arbitrarily short period of time are supposed to be objective constituents of the environment over a more extended time scale. I argue here that neorealism fares at least as well as brain-centered theories of consciousness on a number of fundamental issues. On one fundamental issue—the nature of the relation between veridical and nonveridical perceptions—neorealism outperforms its competitors. (shrink)

Richard Jeffrey said that Newcomb’s Problem may be seen “as a rock on which... Bayesianism... must founder” and the problem has been almost universally conceived as reconciling the science-fictional features of the decision problem with a plausible causal analysis. Later, Jeffrey renounced his earlier position that accepted Newcomb problems as genuine decision problems, suggesting “Newcomb problems are like Escher’s famous staircase”. We may interpret this to mean that we know there can be no such thing, though we see no local (...) flaw in the puzzle. In this paper, I develop the critique of Slezak to show that Jeffrey’s analogy is apt for a puzzle whose logical features can be precisely articulated and I propose an easily realizable experiment that convincingly supports this analysis. I suggest that these real-life analogs of Newcomb’s Problem have diverted attention from the essential function of the science-fiction of a predicting demon. Following Eells, similarities with realistic problems such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and common cause cases have suggested that Newcomb’s Problem may be given a coherent description and realized in some way consistent with classical causation. However, the peculiarity of the apparent link between one’s choice and the previously determined contents of the second box is the central, defining feature of Newcomb’s Problem. I argue that the predictor may not be merely a fiction providing insufficient “extra information” as both McKay and Levi suggest. Rather, I suggest that the decision problem permits a precise specification revealing the source of the notorious perplexity. Notwithstanding efforts to rescue the coherence of Newcomb’s Problem and a classical causal account, a simulation of the decision problem establishes the correctness of my analysis and, thereby, hopefully ending the debate. (shrink)

In philosophy, the last thirty years or so has seen a split between 'simulation theorists' and 'theory-theorists', with a number of variations on each side. In general, simulation theorists favour the idea that our knowledge of others is based on using ourselves as a working model of what complex psychological creatures are like. Theory-theorists claim that our knowledge of complex psychological creatures, including ourselves, is theoretical in character and so more like our knowledge of the world in general. The body (...) of this paper is divided into three parts. In Part I, I introduce the 'contrastive case' of autism. Autism is a developmental disorder that has recently become the focus of sustained philosophical and psychological attention because of the selective way in which it affects individuals' social capacities. Theory-theorists argue that autistic children's unique profile of assets and deficits is most fruitfully explained by their inability to develop and deploy a theory of mind. After considering the strengths of this hypothesis, I claim theory-theorists face two unresolved difficulties: explaining why high-functioning autistics who develop some theory of mind capacities still fail to engage in normal psychological knowing; and explaining why autistics are generally as unknowable to us in the privileged sense of normal psychological knowing as we are to them. In Part II, I provide the theoretical framework for addressing these challenges by developing an account of normal psychological knowing as psycho-practical expertise. In Part III, I return to the problem of autism, showing how this psycho-practical approach to normal psychological knowing may further suggest how to encompass various aspects of the disorder that tend to be ignored under the prevailing theory-theory approach. (shrink)

According to the sensorimotor account, vision does not imply theconstruction of internally generated representations of the environment, butit isthe skillful exercise of the sensorimotor contingencies obeying sense-specific laws. In this short study, I focus on the notion of “sensorimotor law” and characterize the kind of explanation providedby the sensorimotor theory as a form of covering law model. I then question the nature of such sensorimotor laws and describe them as mechanisms. I show that a mechanistic interpretation provides a better account (...) of the sensorimotor invariances, which fosters us to rebalance the explanatory burden of sensorimotor action and information. Finally, I show that the question of the roleof representations within the sensorimotor theory should be reconsidered. (shrink)

Philosophical inquiries into the nature of consciousness have long been intrinsically tied to questions regarding the nature of the self. Although philosophers of mind seldom make reference to the role of cultural context in shaping consciousness, since antiquity culture has played a notable role in philosophical conceptions of the self. Western philosophers, from Plato to Locke, have emphasized an individualistic view of the self that is autonomous and consistent across situations, while Eastern philosophers, such as Lao Tzu and Confucius, have (...) argued for a collectivistic view of the self, one that is interconnected to others and embedded within specific social contexts and situations. Here we argue that a comprehensive theory of consciousness needs to account for the role of cultural context and its bidirectional interaction with neural and genetic mechanisms in shaping a variety of conscious phenomena, from visual perception to self- awareness. We review recent evidence of cultural variation in neurobiological mechanisms underlying these phenomena and discuss the implications of these cultural neuroscience findings for the study of consciousness. (shrink)

It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of psycho-physical parallelism and about how we could define probabilities for our individual future observations given our individual present and previous observations. The complexity of the problems is underlined by arguments that unpredictability in ordinary everyday neural functioning, ultimately stemming from small-scale uncertainties (...) in molecular motions, may overwhelm, by many orders of magnitude, many conventionally recognized sources of observed ``quantum'' uncertainty. Some possible ways of avoiding the problems are considered but found wanting. It is proposed that a complete understanding of the relationship between subjective experience and its physical correlates requires the introduction of mathematical definitions and indeed of new physical laws. (shrink)

Carruthers proposes that for a mental state to be conscious , it must be present in a.

I argue in opposition to Sam Rakover that the current lack of fully adequate theories of the subjective and qualitative aspects of mind does not justify the adoption of what he calls “methodological dualism” (Rakover, this issue). Scientific understanding of consciousness requires the continuation of attempts to explain it in terms of the neural mechanisms that support it. It would be premature to adopt a methodological stance that could foreclose on the possibility of more reductionistic approaches. The effects of such (...) a stance would be especially pernicious insofar as methodological dualism lacks rigorous methods for testing specific models. (shrink)

Our understanding of human visual perception generally rests on the assumption that conscious visual states represent the interaction of spatial structures in the environment and our nervous system. This assumption is questioned by circumstances where conscious visual states can be triggered by external stimulation which is not primarily spatially defined. This work discusses psychophysical experiments investigating flicker induced subjective experiences of colour and form. Using the presentation of spatially uniform flicker with a precise temporal resolution it is shown that subjective (...) experiences do not only depend on stimulation frequency, but also on stimulation phase. In addition, the occurrence of one subjective experience appears to be associated with the occurrence of others. The phenomenology of subjective colour and form is further explored and the physiological mechanisms underlying subjective colour are investigated using electroencephalography. While these data indicate that conscious visual experience may be evoked directly by particular variations in the flow of spatially unstructured light over time it may be assumed that the systems reponsible are essentially temporal in character and capable of representing a variety of visual forms and colours, coded in different frequencies or at different phases of the same processing rhythm. (shrink)

Förståelse kan sägas vara den högsta formen av medveten insikt. Kunskap om ett fenomen behöver inte i sig vara tillräcklig för förståelse - de tidiga människorna visste att solen gick upp i öster, men de förstod inte att detta berodde på att jorden är rund och roterar. Förståelsebegreppet är centralt för all vetenskaplig aktivitet, men har mest studerats och tillämpats inom human- och samhällsvetenskaperna. Inom naturvetenskapen har ”förståelse” fått träda i skymundan för ”förklaring”. Vi skall se att detta är olyckligt (...) och att förståelsebegreppet verkligen är av högsta relevans även för naturvetenskapen. Vi får här ett verktyg för att bedöma de yttersta gränserna för våra insikter i omvärlden. Analysen i detta arbete utgår ifrån en ny teori för förståelse, där de två fundamentala elementen är abstraktion och jämförelse. Ett antal intressanta konsekvenser följer, exempelvis visar vi att vissa fenomen aldrig kommer att kunna förstås och att lärandeprocessen ges nya möjligheter. (shrink)

It has long been appreciated that the brain is oscillatory 1. Early measurements of brain electrophysiology revealed rhythmic synchronization unifying large swaths of the brain. The study of neural oscillation has enveloped cognitive neuroscience and neural systems. The traditional belief that oscillations are epiphenomenal of neuron spiking is being challenged by intracellular oscillations and the theoretical backing that oscillatory activity is fundamental to physics. Subjective experience oscillates at three particular frequency bands in a cognitive triad: perception at 5 Hz, action (...) at 2 Hz, and attention at 0.1 Hz. This triad functions as a means of information flow across scales of magnitude in a biological fractal. The _Homunculus Solution _is proposed in which mental experience occurs at fixed scales of biology. The mind is composed of minds, perceived as "the voices in your head." Each voice has voices inside its head to increasingly microscopic scales, forming an interactive fractal of subjective experience. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

The greatest chasm in the philosophy of mind--maybe even all of philosophy-- divides two perspectives on consciousness. The two perspectives differ on whether there is anything in the phenomenal character of conscious experience that goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive and the functional. A convenient terminological handle on the dispute is whether there are.

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine is an imposing monument to the wealth and power of scientific medicine. Set on its own block in upper Manhattan, its rhetorical centre is the Stern Auditorium. Here, just over a year after 9/11, a group of gurus and self-seekers assembled to confer on the nature of the self. I was there too, looking for help in constructing a grand unified theory of soul and brain.

Javier Ortiz-Tudela y Juan Lupiáñez Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento, Universidad de Granada, España De la representación que … Read More →.

The aims of this book are: to explain the notion of phenomenal consciousness in a non-metaphorical way that minimizes controversial assumptions; to characterize the relationship between the phenomenal character and intentionality of visual experience, visual imagery and non-imagistic thought; and to clarify the way in which conscious experience is intrinsically valuable to us. It argues for the legitimacy of a first-person approach to these issues--one which relies on a distinctively first-person warrant for judgments about one's own experience. Thought experiments are (...) employed in which one is asked to conceive of having various forms of blindsight, so as to make consciousness intellectually conspicuous by its absence in such hypothetical scenarios. It is argued that theories of mind that would commit us to denying either the conceptual or the metaphysical possibility of these scenarios neglect the occurrence of consciousness in this phenomenal sense. (shrink)

In this paper a framework to study consciousness in animals is proposed which is based on a hierarchical organizational feedback model of the central nervous system, the separation of a given mental state into two components, i.e. an invariant part, and a variant part, which are separately related to the organization of the central nervous system, i.e. 'a neural network' and 'momentary active connections within the neural network determined by in- and output of this neural network' respectively, and phylogeny based (...) on the invariant part or the presence of a neural network. Consciousness is defined as a property of neural networks of self-organizing systems dedicated to dealing with rapidly changing environments affording flexibility of behavioural patterning. (shrink)