Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. The integrated information theory of consciousness: A case of mistaken identity.Bjorn Merker, Kenneth Williford & David Rudrauf - 2022 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 45:e41.
    Giulio Tononi's integrated information theory (IIT) proposes explaining consciousness by directly identifying it with integrated information. We examine the construct validity of IIT's measure of consciousness,phi(Φ), by analyzing its formal properties, its relation to key aspects of consciousness, and its co-variation with relevant empirical circumstances. Our analysis shows that IIT's identification of consciousness with the causal efficacy with which differentiated networks accomplish global information transfer (which is what Φ in fact measures) is mistaken. This misidentification has the consequence of requiring (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Mapping the Ethical Issues of Brain Organoid Research and Application.Tsutomu Sawai, Yoshiyuki Hayashi, Takuya Niikawa, Joshua Shepherd, Elizabeth Thomas, Tsung-Ling Lee, Alexandre Erler, Momoko Watanabe & Hideya Sakaguchi - 2022 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 13 (2):81-94.
    In 2008, researchers created human three-dimensional neural tissue – known as the pioneering work of “brain organoids.” In recent years, some researchers have transplanted human brain organoids into animal brains for applicational purposes. With these experiments have come many ethical concerns. It is thus an urgent task to clarify what is ethically permissible and impermissible in brain organoid research. This paper seeks (1) to sort out the ethical issues related to brain organoid research and application and (2) to propose future (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • Human cerebral organoids and consciousness: a double-edged sword.Andrea Lavazza - 2020 - Monash Bioethics Review 38 (2):105-128.
    Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are three-dimensional in vitro cell cultures that mimic the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. In just a few years this technique has produced brain models that are already being used to study diseases of the nervous system and to test treatments and drugs. Currently, HCOs consist of tens of millions of cells and have a size of a few millimeters. The greatest limitation to further development is due to their lack of vascularization. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • A role for the anterior insular cortex in the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness.Matthias Michel - 2017 - Consciousness and Cognition 49:333-346.
    According to the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness, consciousness results from the global broadcast of information throughout the brain. The global neuronal workspace is mainly constituted by a fronto-parietal network. The anterior insular cortex is part of this global neuronal workspace, but the function of this region has not yet been defined within the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness. In this review, I hypothesize that the anterior insular cortex implements a cross-modal priority map, the function of which is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • (2 other versions)On a confusion about a function of consciousness.Ned Block - 1995 - Brain and Behavioral Sciences 18 (2):227-–247.
    Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1176 citations  
  • Testing the Correlates of Consciousness in Brain Organoids: How Do We Know and What Do We Do?Rachel A. Ankeny & Ernst Wolvetang - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):51-53.
    What consciousness exactly is remains an unsettled issue among both philosophers and biologists. Three aspects of consciousness are generally recognized: awareness consciousness (through connection...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The functions of consciousness.Bernard J. Baars - 1988 - In A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness. New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   560 citations  
  • The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness.Giulio Tononi - 2007 - In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 243–256.
    Integrated information theory (IIT) starts from the essential properties of experience and translates them into requirements that any physical system must satisfy to be conscious. It argues that the physical substrate of consciousness (PSC) must constitute a maximum of irreducible, internal cause‐effect power of a specific form, and provides a calculus to determine, in principle, both the quality and the quantity of an experience. Applied to the brain, IIT predicts that the spatio‐temporal grain of the neural units constituting the PSC, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Human Brain Organoids and Consciousness.Takuya Niikawa, Yoshiyuki Hayashi, Joshua Shepherd & Tsutomu Sawai - 2022 - Neuroethics 15 (1):1-16.
    This article proposes a methodological schema for engaging in a productive discussion of ethical issues regarding human brain organoids, which are three-dimensional cortical neural tissues created using human pluripotent stem cells. Although moral consideration of HBOs significantly involves the possibility that they have consciousness, there is no widely accepted procedure to determine whether HBOs are conscious. Given that this is the case, it has been argued that we should adopt a precautionary principle about consciousness according to which, if we are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • The unfolding argument: Why IIT and other causal structure theories cannot explain consciousness.Adrien Doerig, Aaron Schurger, Kathryn Hess & Michael H. Herzog - 2019 - Consciousness and Cognition 72:49-59.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   27 citations  
  • Cerebral organoids: ethical issues and consciousness assessment.Andrea Lavazza & Marcello Massimini - 2018 - Journal of Medical Ethics 44 (9):606-610.
    Organoids are three-dimensional biological structures grown in vitro from different kinds of stem cells that self-organise mimicking real organs with organ-specific cell types. Recently, researchers have managed to produce human organoids which have structural and functional properties very similar to those of different organs, such as the retina, the intestines, the kidneys, the pancreas, the liver and the inner ear. Organoids are considered a great resource for biomedical research, as they allow for a detailed study of the development and pathologies (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   39 citations  
  • Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: a unifying triple network model.Vinod Menon - 2011 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15 (10):483-506.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   69 citations  
  • Non‐human consciousness and the specificity problem: A modest theoretical proposal.Henry Shevlin - 2021 - Mind and Language 36 (2):297-314.
    Most scientific theories of consciousness are challenging to apply outside the human case insofar as non‐human systems (both biological and artificial) are unlikely to implement human architecture precisely, an issue I call thespecificity problem. After providing some background on the theories of consciousness debate, I survey the prospects of four approaches to this problem. I then consider a fifth solution, namely thetheory‐light approachproposed by Jonathan Birch. I defend a modified version of this that I term themodest theoretical approach, arguing that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • The Non-Causal Account of the Spontaneous Emergence of Phenomenal Consciousness.Mihretu P. Guta - 2018 - In Consciousness and the Ontology of Properties. New York: Routledge. pp. 126-151.
    In this paper, I will give a three-stage analysis of the origin of phenomenal consciousness. The first one has to do with a non-causal stage. The second one has to do with a causal stage. The third one has to do with a correlation stage. This paper is divided into three sections. In section I, I will discuss a non-causal stage which focuses on finite consciousness as an irreducible emergent property—i.e., a simple non-structural property that is unique to the “emergent” (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Comparative psychology without consciousness.Peter Carruthers - 2018 - Consciousness and Cognition 63:47-60.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Human Brain Organoids: Why There Can Be Moral Concerns If They Grow Up in the Lab and Are Transplanted or Destroyed.Andrea Lavazza & Massimo Reichlin - 2023 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 32 (4):582-596.
    Human brain organoids (HBOs) are three-dimensional biological entities grown in the laboratory in order to recapitulate the structure and functions of the adult human brain. They can be taken to be novel living entities for their specific features and uses. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the use of HBOs, the authors identify three sets of reasons for moral concern. The first set of reasons regards the potential emergence of sentience/consciousness in HBOs that would endow them with a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Consciousness in a Rotor? Science and Ethics of Potentially Conscious Human Cerebral Organoids.Federico Zilio & Andrea Lavazza - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):178-196.
    Human cerebral organoids are three-dimensional biological cultures grown in the laboratory to mimic as closely as possible the cellular composition, structure, and function of the corresponding organ, the brain. For now, cerebral organoids lack blood vessels and other characteristics of the human brain, but are also capable of having coordinated electrical activity. They have been usefully employed for the study of several diseases and the development of the nervous system in unprecedented ways. Research on human cerebral organoids is proceeding at (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • Ethical (and epistemological) issues regarding consciousness in cerebral organoids.Joshua Shepherd - 2018 - Journal of Medical Ethics 44 (9):611-612.
    In this interesting paper, Lavazza and Massimini draw attention to a subset of the ethical issues surrounding the development and potential uses of cerebral organoids. This subset concerns the possibility that cerebral organoids may one day develop phenomenal consciousness, and thereby qualify as conscious subjects—that there may one day be something it is like to be an advanced cerebral organoid. This possibility may feel outlandish. But as Lavazza and Massimini demonstrate, the science of organoids is moving fast, and I agree (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Cerebral organoids and consciousness: how far are we willing to go?Andrea Lavazza & Marcello Massimini - 2018 - Journal of Medical Ethics 44 (9):613-614.
    In his interesting commentary, Joshua Shepherd raises two points—one related to epistemology, the other to ethics—about our article on human cerebral organoids.1 2 From the epistemological standpoint, he calls into question the need for a theory of consciousness. A theory of consciousness, for him, is not necessary because of the lack of consensus about the very nature of consciousness. Shepherd suggests that ‘given widespread disagreement, applying a theory of consciousness may not be helpful when attempting to diagnose the presence of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations