While life in general can be explained by the mechanisms of physics, chemistry and biology, to many scientists and philosophers it appears that when it comes to explaining consciousness, there is what the philosopher Joseph Levine called an “explanatory gap” between the physical brain and subjective experiences. Here we deduce the living and neural features behind primary consciousness within a naturalistic biological framework, identify which animal taxa have these features (the vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopod molluscs), then reconstruct when consciousness first (...) evolved and consider its adaptive value. We theorize that consciousness is based on all the complex system features of life, plus the even more complex features of elaborate brains. We argue that the main reason why the explanatory gap between the brain and experience has been so refractory to scientific explanation is that it arises from both life and from varied and diverse brains and brain regions, so bridging the gap requires a complex, multifactorial account that includes the great diversity of consciousness, its personal nature that stems from embodied life, and the special neural features that make consciousness unique in nature. (shrink)

In 1895 in the Project for a Scientific Psychology Freud tried to integrate psychology and neurology in order to develop a neuroscientific psychology. Since 1880 Freud made no distinction between psychology and physiology. His papers from the end of the 1880s to1890 were very clear on this scientific overlap: as with many of its contemporaries, Freud thought about psychology essentially as the physiology of the brain. Years later he had to surrender, realizing a technological delay, not capable to pursue its (...) ambitious aim, and until that moment psychoanalysis would have to use its more suitable clinical method. Also, he seemed skeptical about the phrenology drift, typical of that time, in which any psychological function needed to be located in its neuroanatomical area. He could not see the progresses of neurosciences and its fruitful dialogue with psychoanalysis, occurred also thanks to the improvements in the field of neuroimaging, which has made possible a remarkable advance in the knowledge of the mind-brain system and a better observation of the psychoanalytical theories. After years of investigations, deriving from research and clinical work of the last century, the discovery of neural networks, together with the free energy principle, we are observing under a new light the psychodynamic neuroscience in its exploration of the mind-brain system. In this narrative review we summarize the important developments of the psychodynamic neuroscience, with particular regard to the free energy principle, the resting state networks, especially the Default Mode Network in its link with the Self; finally we suggest a discussion by approaching the concept of Alpha Function, proposed by the psychoanalyst Wilfred Ruprecht Bion, trying to speculate about the connection with neuroscience. (shrink)

Después de una breve caracterización de las ciencias cognitivas, se destaca la existencia de dos enfoques erróneos en filosofía del conocimiento apostando por el enfoque propio de las ciencias cognitivas, donde el sujeto de cognición es procesador de información y tanto puede ser un humano como una máquina o un animal. En segundo lugar se caracteriza el sujeto cognitivo como un sistema físico de símbolos, de acuerdo con la tesis de Allen Newell y Herbert Simon, comentando y ejemplificando tal tesis. (...) Y finalmente se distingue entre diversos grados de cognición en sentido amplio, tanto en animales como en máquinas, así como se destaca la cognición en sentido propio o cognición inteligente, que comprende las operaciones de concebir, juzgar y razonar. (shrink)

Exploro en el presente ensayo las conexiones entre emoción y razón, partiendo de la hipótesis de acuerdo con la cual la división tradicional entre ambos espacios no se sostiene. A la luz de los más recientes avances en ciencia cognitiva, podemos afirmar que los procesos racionales y de toma de decisiones están imbuidos, en numerosas ocasiones, por factores emocionales, los cuales no obstaculizan sino que contribuyen a mejorar nuestra comprensión de lo real y de «los otros»; esto es, la inteligencia (...) humana, en muchas de sus facetas, se vería seriamente menoscabada si descartamos o anulamos el componente emocional. Si mi hipótesis es cierta, nos veríamos obligados a redefinir nuestra concepción de la mente y, por ende, del ser humano y su naturaleza. En efecto, un nuevo modelo acerca de las emociones transformaría nuestra concepción de la ética y la moral. (shrink)