No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Understanding Consciousness: A Collaborative Attempt to Elucidate Contemporary Theories
Abstract
Nature Network Groups hosted an invited workshop on 'Theories of Consciousness' during the second semester of 2009. There were presentations by each of 15 authors active in the field, followed by debate with other presenters and invitees. A week was allocated to each of the theories proposed; general discussion threads were also opened from time to time, as seemed appropriate. We (who had been participants in the workshop) offer here an account of the principal outcomes. It can be regarded as a contemporary, 'state of the art' snapshot of thinking in this field.
... no site interativo da revista Nature, ao final da década de 2000, e a partir de dois outros grupos, um deles coordenado pelo Dr. Hans Ricke. Nesse grupo, que contava com importantes teóricos da consciência, chegamos a um certo consenso em torno do Monismo de Duplo Aspecto de Max Velmans, que participava do grupo (sobre esse consenso, vide Pereira Jr. et al., 2010). Em 2012, fui para Zurich, trabalhar com o Dr. Dietrich Lehmann, em um livro que seria o resultado final dos trabalhos desse grupo (Pereira Jr.; Lehmann, 2010). Nesse ínterim, eu me dei conta de que minhas pesquisas sobre astrócitos e a própria orientação da Neurociência Afetiva de Panksepp e Damásio apontavam para a necessidade de se t ...
Resumo: Trata-se, o presente texto, de uma entrevista concedida pelo Prof. Dr. Alfredo Pereira Jr. ao Dr. Leonardo Ferreira Almada, por ocasião da chamada para publicação de entrevistas com distintas/os filósofas/os brasileiras/os. Atendendo ao objetivo da chamada da revista Trans/Form/Ação, buscou-se realizar uma entrevista em que um professor doutor com carreira consagrada apresenta alguns elementos de suas histórias pessoais e acadêmicas, bem como esclarece pontos importantes de sua pesquisa, algumas de suas teses e visão de mundo, a partir de questões propostas por um outro professor doutor, parceiro histórico de pesquisa e profundo conhecedor da carreira do entrevistado.
... The assumed concept of consciousness takes into consideration that Sentience, defined as 'the capacity of feeling', is a necessary requisite for the existence of conscious experience, together with the material body and the capacity of information processing. The three aspects (matter, information and feeling) were claimed to be conjointly sufficient to account for conscious experiences; this is the Triple-Aspect Monist thesis (TAM; see the investigations of Pereira Jr. [2,5] and a bit of history of the thesis [7] ). science do not explain 'qualia' (in his example, the smell of a flower). ...
Assuming that conscious experience happens in the first-person perspective the study of its contents cannot be made by using the methods of empirical and formal quantitative sciences, since singular qualitative personal experiences remain outside their scope. Departing from the concept of Sentient Consciousness advanced in the ontology of Triple-Aspect Monism, I propose that lived experiences of qualitative states ('qualia') are subject to a new, non-scientific field of study, Qualiomics, corresponding to the Metaphysics of Consciousness. The main thesis of Qualiomics is that personal direct experiences of 'qualia' are experiences of the being of reality, not epiphenomena. The method of Qualiomics is knowing by means of lived experiences of feeling, instead of learning from revealed truth or from representations of experiences. In this paper I review some philosophical precursors, arguing that it has an affinity with Post-Modern Metaphysics, to be distinguished from Pre-Modern (Onto-Teo-Logical) and Modern (apriori thinking, focused on representations and clarification of concepts) Metaphysics. The being of reality is conceived as the Aristotelian Katholou that makes itself present when we have direct experiences of the Form of individual substances. Qualiomics is close to Existential Phenomenology, but not a revival of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, because it is necessary to take into consideration that scientific and technological achievements impact on our lives and expand the repertoire of 'qualia' that we can experience. It is also close to J. J. Gibson's Theory of Direct Perception, as well as Pragmatist and Enactivist approaches to consciousness.
... The assumed concept of consciousness takes into consideration that Sentience, defined as 'the capacity of feeling', is a necessary requisite for the existence of conscious experience, together with the material body and the capacity of information processing. The three aspects (matter, information and feeling) were claimed to be conjointly sufficient to account for conscious experiences; this is the Triple-Aspect Monist thesis (TAM; see the investigations of Pereira Jr. [2,5] and a bit of history of the thesis [7] ). science do not explain 'qualia' (in his example, the smell of a flower). ...
Assuming that conscious experience happens in the first-person perspective the study of its contents cannot be made by using the methods of empirical and formal quantitative sciences, since singular qualitative personal experiences remain outside their scope. Departing from the concept of Sentient Consciousness advanced in the ontology of Triple-Aspect Monism, I propose that lived experiences of qualitative states ('qualia') are subject to a new, non-scientific field of study, Qualiomics, corresponding to the Metaphysics of Consciousness. The main thesis of Qualiomics is that personal direct experiences of 'qualia' are experiences of the being of reality, not epiphenomena. The method of Qualiomics is knowing by means of lived experiences of feeling, instead of learning from revealed truth or from representations of experiences. In this paper I review some philosophical precursors, arguing that it has an affinity with Post-Modern Metaphysics, to be distinguished from Pre-Modern (Onto-Teo-Logical) and Modern (apriori thinking, focused on representations and clarification of concepts) Metaphysics. The being of reality is conceived as the Aristotelian Katholou that makes itself present when we have direct experiences of the Form of individual substances. Qualiomics is close to Existential Phenomenology, but not a revival of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, because it is necessary to take into consideration that scientific and technological achievements impact on our lives and expand the repertoire of 'qualia' that we can experience. It is also close to J. J. Gibson's Theory of Direct Perception, as well as Pragmatist and Enactivist approaches to consciousness.
... From the publication of the original TAM thesis in 2012, in a book organized by myself and Dr. Dietrich Lehmann (see chapter 10 in Pereira Jr. 2013), which resulted from online seminars in the Nature journal network at the end of the 2010s, in a process of discussion and collective elaboration with the main authors in the area of Theory of Consciousness (see Pereira Jr. et al., 2010, Pereira Jr. 2022, I have elaborated, in a series of articles and book chapters published internationally, several developments of TAM, more recently relating this theory with the concept of Sentience (Pereira Jr., 2017b, 2021a and proposing a new science focused on the study of unconscious physical-biological patterns that engender our ability to feel -Sentiomics -presented to the Brazilian philosophical community in an article contained in the first volume of We can speculate that Heidegger's criticism of the "forgetfulness of Being", which targets Aristotle and his philosophical followers, could concern the adoption of the third-person perspective, rather than the 'first-person perspective' (of the Dasein). However, as I argued in the chapter in which I formulated TAM (Pereira Jr., 2013), the affective/sentimental aspect is not absent in Aristotle, but is presented as a quality specific to the heart and not the mind (anima). ...
Triple-Aspect Monism is an Interdisciplinary Ontology in which, departing from both personal and scientific experiences, I have claimed that there are three necessary conditions for consciousness: the Matter that composes our living body, the Information that affords us the experience of a world, and Sentience, the capacity of feeling, that affords sensations, affects, emotions and attribution of meaning to our lives. The Metaphysics of Triple-Aspect Monism seeks for the Aristotelian "Being as Being" (to Katholou), the principle of unity in the diversity of substances that unfolds itself generating both the subjects (Minds) and the objects and processes (Matter) we meet in our experience. Energy (with a capital E) would be the primitive state of such a Being, that is, the source from which the three aspects (Matter, Information and Sentience) flow. Conscious experience is conceived within the process of differentiation and reunification of Energy, generated from the dynamic unity of the three aspects. The relation between the Being and the Aspects is one of actualization of potentialities, as in Aristotelian philosophy rescued within the scope of a Post-Modern Metaphysics (PMM). The current stage of PMM leads to a Feuerbachian view of God as emergent in social conscious experience, becoming real in social practice, from the legitimate symbolic message of prophets, made concrete in sacred texts, rituals, images, buildings and social institutions implemented by religious organizations.
... A partir da publicação da tese original do MTA em 2012, em livro por mim organizado pela editora da Universidade de Cambridge, que resultou de seminários online na revista Nature ao final da década de 2010, em um processo de discussão e elaboração coletiva com os principais autores da área de Teoria da Consciência (vide Pereira Jr. et al., 2010, Pereira Jr. 2022, tenho elaborado, em uma série de artigos e capítulos de livros publicados internacionalmente, diversos desenvolvimentos do MTA, mais recentemente relacionando esta teoria com o conceito de Sentiência (Pereira Jr., 2017b, 2021a e propondo uma nova ciência voltada para o estudo dos padrões físicobiológicos inconscientes que engendram nossa capacidade de sentir -a Sentiômicaapresentada para a comunidade filosófica brasileira em artigo constante do primeiro volume de Filosofia Autoral Brasileira recentemente publicado pela revista Trans/Form/Ação (Pereira Jr. e Aguiar, 2023 ciência. Trata-se de um novo modo de abordagem cognitiva do mundo, uma transição de uma (tanto quanto possível) neutra observação do mundo para uma relação pessoal com o mundo" (Yannaras, 2004, p. 114, tradução minha da versão em inglês). ...
Minhas pesquisas em Filosofia da Neurociência deram origem ao Monismo de Triplo Aspecto (MTA), uma Ontologia Interdisciplinar em que identifiquei, a partir da experiência pessoal (na perspectiva de primeira pessoa; Nagel, 1974), combinada com uma revisão extensa de resultados científicos (na perspectiva de terceira pessoa; Nagel, 1974), os três aspectos fundamentais e conjuntamente necessários para a experiência consciente: a materialidade do corpo vivo, os padrões dinâmicos de informação que sinalizam eventos do mundo, e o sentimento (ou sentido, no sentido filosófico do termo), pelo qual as pessoas respondem aos eventos vivenciados e direcionam seu comportamento. A partir da publicação da tese original do MTA em 2012, em livro por mim organizado pela editora da Universidade de Cambridge, que resultou de seminários online na revista Nature ao final da década de 2010, em um processo de discussão e elaboração coletiva com os principais autores da área de Teoria da Consciência (vide Pereira Jr. et al., 2010, Pereira Jr. 2022), tenho elaborado, em uma série de artigos e capítulos de livros publicados internacionalmente, diversos desenvolvimentos do MTA, mais recentemente relacionando esta teoria com o conceito de Sentiência (Pereira Jr., 2017b, 2021a) e propondo uma nova ciência voltada para o estudo dos padrões físico-biológicos inconscientes que engendram nossa capacidade de sentir-a Sentiômica-apresentada para a comunidade filosófica brasileira em artigo constante do primeiro volume de Filosofia Autoral Brasileira recentemente publicado pela revista Trans/Form/Ação (Pereira Jr. e Aguiar, 2023). O caminho seguido na Filosofia da Neurociência me conduziu a investigar os universais espécie-específicos, que são as formas biológicas que possibilitam a vida e a capacidade de sentir, historicamente referidas na origem da própria ciência biológica a partir dos estudos morfológicos empíricos de Aristóteles. Portanto, na evolução de meu pensar filosófico-assim como no de outros autores, como Yannaras (2004)-se estabeleceu uma conexão entre as pesquisas em Biologia com a Metafísica na era Pós-Moderna.
... Entretanto, cabe a ressalva de que outras atividades são atribuídas a estes profissionais, como a orientação de monografias, dissertações e teses. Neste aspecto, tais atribuições, em sua forma um tanto quanto subjetiva de serem executadas, acarretam em alguns dinamismos muito singulares à profissão Docente.Porém, para estas questões levantadas acima, precisamos ter em mente os construtos subjetivos da consciência, desmembrando-a da questão física cerebral e considerando-a de natureza imaterial e que tem interferência direta nos estados mentais do Ser Humano(Pereira et al., 2010). Ora, como que, em situação fora do seu local físico de trabalho, o Docente olha para si? O que são representados internamente por ele quando não está dentro da sala de aula ou nos domínios da Universidade/Faculdade? ...
Nascimento, A. M., Revoredo, T. M., & Roazzi, A. (2020). Doces deletérios da atividade docente no ensino superior brasileiro: Autoconsciência em foco. Revista EDUCAmazônia - Educação Sociedade e Meio Ambiente (ISSN 1983-3423), 25(2), 518-530. https://bit.ly/3cqQ9jt ////
Resumo: Nos últimos anos, com a expansão das faculdades e universidades em todo o território nacional, a atividade social da docência ganhou grande expressão e notoriedade no contexto Brasileiro, sendo um agente importantíssimo para o desenvolvimento do ensino superior. Neste sentido, atribuições e cobranças foram exigidas a este profissional como parte integrante do seu ofício, modificando a ideia secular do filósofo Platão de ter a prática do ensino como uma atividade quase que divina e tornando-a um processo capitalizado, visando prioritariamente os números dos indicadores anuais e dando a impressão de se deixar um pouco de lado o exercício do passar conhecimento e em toma-lo como mola propulsora do crescimento humano. Diante desta perspectiva, este artigo visa lançar um debate sobre as relações de felicidade e conturbações no envolto da docência e propor a ideia de que, em alguma medida, tal atividade possa ser afetada de forma danosa ao Self refletindo em questões no âmbito da autoconsciência tanto reflexiva quando de ruminação. Palavras-chave: Docência no Ensino superior; Autoconsciência; Ruminação; Reflexão; Psicologia Cognitiva. ////
Abstract: In recent years, with the expansion of the faculties and universities throughout the national territory, social activity of teaching gained great expression and renown in the Brazilian context, being a very important agent for the development of higher education. In this sense, attributions and charges were demanded from this professional as an integral part of his profession, modifying the secular idea of the philosopher Plato who considered the practice of teaching as an almost divine activity and making it a capitalized process, prioritizing the numbers of the annual indicators and giving the impression of leaving the exercise of passing on knowledge a little and taking it as the driving force behind human growth. Given this perspective, this article aims to launch a debate on the relationships of happiness and troubles in the teaching environment and propose the idea that, to some extent, such activity may be adversely affected to the Self, affecting on issues within self-awareness both reflective and ruminating. Keywords: Teaching in Higher Education; Consciousness; Rumination; Reflection; Cognitive Psychology.
... Porém, para estas questões levantadas acima, precisamos ter em mente os construtos subjetivos da consciência, desmembrando-a da questão física cerebral e considerando-a de natureza imaterial e que tem interferência direta nos estados mentais do Ser Humano (Pereira et al., 2010). Ora, como que, em situação fora do seu local físico de trabalho, o Docente olha para si? O que são representados internamente por ele quando não está dentro da sala de aula ou nos domínios da Universidade/Faculdade? ...
Nos últimos anos, com a expansão das faculdades e universidades em todo o território nacional, a atividade social da docência ganhou grande expressão e notoriedade no contexto Brasileiro, sendo um agente importantíssimo para o desenvolvimento do ensino superior. Neste sentido, atribuições e cobranças foram exigidas a este profissional como parte integrante do seu ofício, modificando a ideia secular do filósofo Platão de ter a prática do ensino como uma atividade quase que divina e tornando-a um processo capitalizado, visando prioritariamente os números dos indicadores anuais e dando a impressão de se deixar um pouco de lado o exercício do passar conhecimento e em toma-lo como mola propulsora do crescimento humano. Diante desta perspectiva, este artigo visa lançar um debate sobre as relações de felicidade e conturbações no envolto da docência e propor a ideia de que, em alguma medida, tal atividade possa ser afetada de forma danosa ao Self refletindo em questões no âmbito da autoconsciência tanto reflexiva quando de ruminação.
... , que foi posicionado no centro do debate em esforços interpretativos prévios(Pereira Jr. et al., 2010;Pereira Jr and Lehmann, 2013), é retomado como referência para o enquadramento da problemática da consciência. ...
Apresentação Este número especial de Trans/Form/Ação é dedicado ao tema "cons-ciência", trazendo um amplo espectro de abordagens do fenômeno que con-temporaneamente se tornou alvo do interesse de investigadores em diversas áreas do conhecimento. Procuramos aqui ilustrar e tratar sistematicamente os principais enfoques filosóficos oferecidos no recorte, descrição, interpretação e tentativas de explicação do fenômeno, contemplando tanto as tradições conti-nentais quanto as analíticas.
... For discussions on the bound conscious experience and the inference that every neuron has some form of sentience, see (Edwards, 2005). A more general appraisal of the understanding of consciousness was presented at an invited workshop hosted by the Nature Network Groups (Pereira, 2010). Various 3D default space theories have recently been discussed and unified in connection with currently accepted consciousness models (Jerath, 2015). ...
A first principle representation of integrated quantum thermal correlations of autaptic neurons associated with conscious brain mechanisms is proposed – the former termed the retinoid system by Trehub. Within this formulation, one descends on a set of unitary transformations yielding generic symmetries of the reduced neuronal dynamics illustrating the projection of the abstract degrees of freedom onto 3D space. The actual spatio-temporal symmetry suggests a general mirroring interpretation of the autapse as given by the structure of the neuronal network. The theory prompts a motif for the abundance of chemical synapses from a neuron onto itself and provides a simple explanation of the phi phenomenon and the Necker cube optical illusion.
... Consciousness science has been the subject of considerable research effort in recent decades, and this has led to the creation of very many theories about consciousness, but none has broad acceptance within the scientific community (Pereira et al., 2010;Katz, 2013). Katz commented that the profusion of theoretical approaches suggests there is a profound problem in this domain. ...
This research is an investigation of whether consciousness—one's ongoing experience—influences one's behavior and, if so, how. Analysis of the components, structure, properties, and temporal sequences of consciousness has established that, (1) contrary to one's intuitive understanding, consciousness does not have an active, executive role in determining behavior; (2) consciousness does have a biological function; and (3) consciousness is solely information in various forms. Consciousness is associated with a flexible response mechanism (FRM) for decision-making, planning, and generally responding in nonautomatic ways. The FRM generates responses by manipulating information and, to function effectively, its data input must be restricted to task-relevant information. The properties of consciousness correspond to the various input requirements of the FRM; and when important information is missing from consciousness, functions of the FRM are adversely affected; both of which indicate that consciousness is the input data to the FRM. Qualitative and quantitative information (shape, size, location, etc.) are incorporated into the input data by a qualia array of colors, sounds, and so on, which makes the input conscious. This view of the biological function of consciousness provides an explanation why we have experiences; why we have emotional and other feelings, and why their loss is associated with poor decision-making; why blindsight patients do not spontaneously initiate responses to events in their blind field; why counter-habitual actions are only possible when the intended action is in mind; and the reason for inattentional blindness.
... Having defined three interrelated modes of existence, we can no longer speak of two exclusive essences, like Plato and Descartes did. In fact, the concept of dualism has gradually lost most of its appeal among present-day philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists who mainly support the idea of a dual-aspect monism (Pereira et al., 2010) and perceive mind and matter as two interdependent aspects of a single essence. Given the conclusions reached above in this article, we must further expand the notion of monism to include all three modes of existence into a triple-aspect monism. ...
An analysis of the physical implications of abstractness reveals the reality of three interconnected modes of existence: abstract, virtual and concrete. This triple-aspect monism clarifies the ontological status of subatomic quantum particles. It also provides a non-spooky solution to the weirdness of quantum physics and a new outlook for the mind-body problem. The ontological implications are profound for both physics and philosophy
This is a brief review of consciousness studies in ‘traditional psychology’. My discussion focuses on three specific problems in consciousness studies: first, a lack of agreement on a definition of consciousness; second, the so-called ‘hard problem’ of trying to connect neurological patterning in the brain with lived experience; third, in relation to my own research focus, traditional psychology lacks a robust systematic study of ASCs. I discuss some approaches to the study of consciousness, including Physicalism, cognitive models and consciousness as phenomenal. I also look at some developments in neuroscience. ASC research is reviewed, including recent developments involving use of psychedelics. I also consider daydream research, and include brief notes on hypnagogia, flow and highly hypnotizable individuals which were all of interest in my ASC research. I introduce the early work of William James and his pioneering research into consciousness as well as his interest in psychical phenomena. My aim in this chapter is to present some impressive research in neuro-psychology but also to show why I chose a phenomenal approach.
Assuming that conscious experience happens in the first-person perspective (Nagel, 1974), the study of its contents cannot be made by using the methods of empirical or formal quantitative sciences, since qualitative personal experiences ("secondary qualities") are not allowed in them, except as linguistic registers in the so-called 'qualitative' approaches. Departing from the concept of consciousness advanced in Triple-Aspect Monism (Pereira Jr., 2013) I propose that direct experiences of qualitative states ('Qualia') are subject to a new, non-scientific field of study, Qualiomics, corresponding to the Metaphysics of Consciousness. The main thesis of Qualiomics is that personal direct experiences of Qualia are experiences of the Being of Reality, not epiphenomena. The method of Qualiomics is knowing by means of lived experiences of feeling, instead of learning from revealed truth or from representations of experiences. In this paper I review some philosophical precursors of this type of metaphysics, arguing that it falls into Post-Modern Metaphysics (PMM), to be distinguished from Pre-Modern (Onto-Teo-Logical) and Modern (apriori thinking, focusing on representations and clarification of concepts) types of metaphysics. The Being of Reality is conceived as the Aristotelian Katholou, the all-encompassing being that makes itself present when we have direct experience of the Form of individual substances. PMM is close to Existential Phenomenology, but not a revival of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, because it is necessary to take into consideration that scientific and technological achievements impact on our lives and expand the repertoire of 'Qualia' that we can experience. PMM is also close to J. J. Gibson's theory of Direct Perception, as well as Pragmatist and Enactivist approaches to consciousness.
Resumo: A sentiência, definida como a capacidade inconsciente de se ter experiência consciente do sentir, é um fenômeno psicobiológico, envolvendo padrões dinâmicos de ondas eletroquímicas, em sistemas vivos. O processo de sentir pode ser estudado em duas modalidades: a) identificação empírica e análise dos padrões temporais universais que caracterizam a sentiência, cujo estudo seria a Sentiômica; b) identificação introspectiva e relato da variedade de experiências conscientes, na perspectiva de primeira pessoa, cujo estudo seria a Qualiômica. A Qualiômica é, sem dúvida, um desafio para a ciência convencional, como afirmado no “problema difícil da consciência” (CHALMERS, 1995), pois a perspectiva de primeira pessoa não é acessível aos métodos de medição e às explicações científicas convencionais. A Sentiômica, enfocando padrões dinâmicos que definem a capacidade de sentir, é, portanto, por definição, suscetível de um tratamento empírico e experimental. Neste artigo, propõe-se contextualizar pressupostos e problemas filosóficos da Sentiômica e apresentar algumas das suas diversas aplicações, com foco na sua relação com a música.
The Online Workshop on Theories of Consciousness (OWTC), a set of live online (text only) discussions carried out in 2009 at the site Nature.com, was an attempt to organize and find minimal agreement on the epistemological bases for scientific and philosophical research on the Theory of Consciousness. This paper covers the guidelines I proposed to the group; some issues discussed after the presentation of the first seminars on “Models of Conscousness”, by Anil Seth, and “Cognitive Theories of Consciousness”, by Vincent de Gardelle; as well as some discussions with the participants about these topics. Following the Concluding Remarks, I added an Epilogue written some years after the Workshop.Keywords: Consciousness; brain; physiology; epistemology; neurons; astrocytes; explanatory models.
Submitted to the SCRIPTA journal (Brazil)
The Online Workshop on Theories of Consciousness (OWTC), a set of live online (text only) discussions carried in 2009 at the site Nature.com, was an attempt to organize and find minimal agreement on the epistemological bases for the scientific and philosophical research on the Theory of Consciousness. This paper covers the guidelines I proposed to the group, some issues discussed after the presentation of the first seminars on "Models of Conscousness", by Anil Seth, "Cognitive Theories of Consciousness", by Vincent de Gardelle, and some discussions with the participants about these topics
In this target paper, I focus on the concept of sentience in
relation to the theory of consciousness and to practice in the medical
sciences, neurology, and psychiatry, regarding both diagnostics and
therapy. Following authors in this field, I distinguish two modalities of
consciousness: sentience, in the sense of being awake and capable of
feeling (e.g. basic sensations of hunger, thirst, pain) and, second, cognitive consciousness, i.e. thinking and elaborating on linguistic and
imagery representations. The physiological correlates of sentience are
proposed to be the systems underpinning the dynamic control of biochemical homeostasis, while the correlates of cognitive consciousness
are considered to be patterns of bioelectrical activity in neural net
works. I claim that sentience needs to be taken in account if better
tools are to be developed for medical diagnostics (e.g. by identifying
biochemical markers) and therapy (e.g. using new drugs and brain
stimulation technologies targeting the correlates of sentience). The
main hypothesis presented here to support this claim is that cognitive
consciousness depends on sentience, but not vice versa, implying that
medical practice should also address the physiological correlates of
sentience in the diagnostics and therapy of disorders of consciousness.
In this target paper, I focus on the concept of sentience in relation to the theory of consciousness and to practice in the medical sciences, neurology and psychiatry, regarding both diagnostics and therapy. Following authors in this field, I distinguish two modalities of consciousness: sentience, in the sense of being awake and capable of feeling (e.g., basic sensations of hunger and thirst, pain) and, second, cognitive consciousness, in the sense of thinking and elaborating on linguistic and imagery representations. The physiological correlates of sentience are proposed to be the systems underpinning the dynamic control of biochemical homeostasis, while the correlates of cognitive consciousness are considered to be patterns of bioelectrical activity in neural networks. I claim that sentience needs to be taken in account, if better tools are to be developed for medical diagnostics (e.g., by identifying biochemical markers) and therapy (e.g., using new pharmacological drugs and brain stimulation technologies targeting the correlates of sentience). The main hypothesis presented here to support this claim is that cognitive consciousness depends on sentience, but not vice-versa, implying that medical practice should also address the physiological correlates of sentience in the diagnostics and therapy of disorders of consciousness.
In this chapter, we postulate an integral concept of information processing in the universe, on the basis of a new biophysical principle, coined the generalized music (GM)-scale of EMF frequencies. Meta-analyses of current biomedical literature revealed the presence of a distinct pattern of discrete EMF frequency bands in a wide range of animate and non-animate systems. The underlying algorithm of harmonic solitonic waves provided a novel conceptual interface between living and non-living systems being of relevance for the areas of brain research as well as biological evolution. We hold that nature is guided by resonating quantum entities related to quantum vacuum fluctuations of an imminent zero-point energy (ZPE) field, also regarded as a superfluid quantum space (SQS). Since the whole human organism, including the brain is embedded in this dynamic energy field, a pilot wave guided supervenience of brain function is conceived. Conversely, the brain may write discrete informational states into the ZPE- field as individual memory traces. Both information fluxes may be related to a holofractal memory workspace, associated with, but not reducible to the brain, that operates as a scale-invariant mental attribute of reality. Our concept, therefore, addresses the earlier postulated “hard problem” in consciousness studies. The proposed field-receptive workspace, integrates past and (anticipated) future events and may explain overall ultra-rapid brain responses as well as the origin of qualia. Information processing in the brain is shown to be largely facilitated by propagation of hydronium (proton/water) ions in aqueous compartments. The hydronium ions move freely within a hexagonally organized H2O lattice, providing a superconductive integral brain antenna for receiving solitonic wave information, according to the Schrödinger wave equation. The latter quantum process enables an ultra-rapid soliton/biophoton flux that may orchestrate overall brain binding and the creation of coherent conscious states. In a cosmological context, we envision a scale-invariant information processing, operating through a toroidal/wormhole operator at the interface of our 3D world and a 4D acoustic phase space. We submit that the resulting meta-language is instrumental in a partially guided evolution and the creation of first life. This implies that sentience exists on infinite scales, on the basis of an electromagnetic signature of the universe providing an intrinsic cosmic connectivity that is mirrored in the human brain and that we may experience as a vivid dream of a concealed reality. Humans, in this respect, are not only observers but also active participants in this cosmic endeavor: the evolution of conscious entities has been woven into the cosmic mastercode from the beginning. The main thesis of this chapter is that in science and philosophy the dominant paradigm of materialism should be considered as incomplete for explaining the whole of reality.
In this commentary to Henry Stapp’s target paper, I defend a view alternative to both von Neumann’s methodological Dualism, and Stapp’s choice of Idealist metaphysics. I argue for a Monist metaphysical thesis, claiming that the observed physical systems and the observers who study them originate from a common “neutral” source (neither material nor mental). Scientifically, I argue for an epistemological view of the neurosciences in which the brain/mind system has a circular topology, affording conscious experiences. In this Monist view of the brain/mind, the decoherence process is not fully completed, as in the “mental collapse” view: there is a “recoherence” process in living tissue that generates conscious episodes experienced by the organisms.
[Paper submitted to a special issue of Activitas Nervosa Superior: Brain, Mind and Cognition, dedicated to Henry Stapp´s work]. In this commentary to Stapp's target paper, I defend a view alternative to von Neumann´s methodological Dualism, and Stapp's choice of Idealist metaphysics.
The development of the interdisciplinary areas of Cognitive, Affective and Action Neurosciences contributes to the identification of neurobiological bases of conscious experience. The structure of consciousness was philosophically conceived a century ago (Husserl, 1913) as consisting of a subjective pole, the bearer of experiences, and an objective pole composed of experienced contents. In more recent formulations, Nagel (1974) refers to a "point of view", in which qualitative experiences are anchored, while Velmans (1990; 1993; 2009; 2017) understands that phenomenal content is composed of mental representations "projected" to the space external to the brains that constructs them. In Freudian psychology, the conscious mind contains a tension between the Id and the Ego (Freud, 1913). How to relate this bipolar structure with the results of neuroscience? I propose the notion of projection (also used by Williford et al., 2012) as a bridge principle connecting the neurobiological systems of Knowing, Feeling and Acting with the bipolar structure. The projective process is considered responsible for the generation of the Sense of Self and the Sense of the World, composing an informational phenomenal field generated by the nervous system and experienced in the first-person perspective. After presenting the projective hypothesis, I discuss its philosophical status, relating it to the Phenomenal (Block, 1995; 2008; 2011) and High-Order Thought (Rosenthal, 2002; Brown, 2014) approaches, and a mathematical model of projection (Rudrauf et al., 2017). Eight ways of testing the status of the projective hypothesis are briefly mentioned.
[The revised English version of this work will appear as Target Paper in the Special Number on Consciousness of the Brazilian philosophy journal Trans/Form/Ação]
Abstract O desenvolvimento da neurociência e da psicologia na "década do cérebro" deu origem às áreas interdisciplinares da Neurociências Cognitiva, Afetiva e da Ação, avançando no sentido de elucidar a estrutura dinâmica da atividade consciente. Esta estrutura foi filosoficamente concebida, há um século, como constituída de um polo subjetivo, o "Eu" que vivencia experiências conscientes, e um polo objetivo, composto pelos conteúdos vivenciados pelo ser consciente (Husserl, 1913). Em trabalhos mais recentes, Nagel (1974), se refere a um "ponto de vista", no qual se ancoram as experiências qualitativas ("what it is like to be"), enquanto Velmans (1993; 2009; 2017) entende que o conteúdo fenomênico da experiência seria constituído por representações mentais localizadas no espaço físico. Morsella (2005) entende que a consciência comporta uma tensão entre desejos subjetivos e necessidades objetivas. Na psicanálise freudiana, já havia uma tematização da estrutura da mente consciente, na bipolaridade entre o Id e o Superego (Freud, 1913). Como relacionar esta estrutura com os resultados da neurociência? Proponho aqui a noção de projeção como princípio-ponte ligando os sistemas neurobiológicos do Conhecer, Sentir e Agir com a estrutura bipolar Eu-Mundo. O processo projetivo é considerado responsável pela geração Sentido do Eu e pelo Sentido do Mundo, ambos conectados em um campo informacional, gerado pelo sistema nervoso, e vivenciado na perspectiva de primeira pessoa.
The second chapter comprises the theoretical foundation for conscious businesses. At first, essential terms are defined to clarify the terminology and contextual direction of the concept conscious business. Key characteristics represent an essential aspect of this chapter as they offer a practical view regarding organizational behavior and development within a complex economic system. Corporate social responsibility is often associated with conscious businesses and represents a misleading direction. Therefore, this chapter addresses fundamental differences between various concepts such as B Corporations or the Economy for the Common Good. Conscious businesses operate within existing markets and complex economic systems. Hence, economic and social drivers are outlined to clarify major forces behind the movement. In addition, the second chapter provides an overview regarding the used research framework. The framework itself is split into four major components that are defined as higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious culture, conscious leadership and linked aspects such as an organization’s business direction. Each aspect is illustrated by describing the activities of four distinct businesses (Whole Foods Market, Zappos, Southwest Airlines and LinkedIn).
Contemporary theories of consciousness are based on widely different concepts of its nature, most or all of which probably embody aspects of the truth about it. Starting with a concept of consciousness indicated by the phrase " the feeling of what happens " (title of a book by Antonio Damásio), we attempt to build a framework capable of supporting and resolving divergent views. We picture consciousness in terms of Reality experiencing itself from the perspective of cognitive agents. Each conscious experience is regarded as composed of momentary feeling events that are combined by recognition and valuation into extended conscious episodes that bind cognitive contents with a wide range of apparent durations (0.1 secs to 2 or more secs, for us humans, depending on circumstances and context). Three necessary conditions for the existence of consciousness are identified: a) a ground of Reality, envisaged as an universal field of potentiality encompassing all possible manifestations, whether material or 'mental'; b) a transitional zone, leading to; c) a manifest world with its fundamental divisions into material, 'informational' and quale-‐endowed aspects. We explore ideas about the nature of these necessary conditions, how they may relate to one another and whether our suggestions have empirical implications.
Spirituality is the taboo topic of science. Science, in conjunction with political and secular enlightenment movements, was one of the major drivers of modern enlightenment, secularization and progress. Science has itself become a powerful meta-narrative. And part of this meta-narrative is a materialist view of the world. In such a model consciousness can only be secondary to material events in the brain. Yet, spiritual experiences are, as data show, quite common. Because the enlightenment movement was so successful, it has done away with all that is considered unnecessary baggage, including spirituality. Therefore, a new discourse needs to start that addresses this problem. This can only be done via the notion of experience. Spiritual experiences are experiences of a reality that is experienced to be beyond the ego and its immediate needs. They are the basis of religion that later starts out to interpret and ritualize these experiences. In them human consciousness seems to have direct access to the structure of reality as such. It is interesting to see that the scientific process has a similar mode of operation: it needs a deep, often creative insight into the structure behind data in order to create a theory. This process is called abduction and is, phenomenologically speaking, very similar to a spiritual experience or insight. Thus, spirituality and science might have more in common than one would think at first glance. This would entail that we need to develop a methodology of inner experience if we want to take spirituality scientifically seriously.
This essay pinpoints four key issues that are central to the epistemology of cognition-oriented neurosciences: the multiple levels of analysis in the study of the brain functions, the confrontation between the computational and dynamicist models; the proper treatment of the interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment; and the philosophical problems encountered in the attempts made to build a neurobiological theory of conscious and human language processes.
Issues concerning the unity of minds, bodies and the world have often recurred in the history of philosophy and, more recently, in scientific models. Taking into account both the philosophical and scientific knowledge about consciousness, this book presents and discusses some theoretical guiding ideas for the science of consciousness. The authors argue that, within this interdisciplinary context, a consensus appears to be emerging assuming that the conscious mind and the functioning brain are two aspects of a complex system that interacts with the world. How can this concept of reality - one that includes the existence of consciousness - be approached both philosophically and scientifically? The Unity of Mind, Brain and World is the result of a three-year online discussion between the authors who present a diversity of perspectives, tending towards a theoretical synthesis, aimed to contribute to the insertion of this field of knowledge in the academic curriculum.
Neste ensaio, identificam-se quatro questões centrais fundamentais para a epistemologia da neurociência de orientação cognitiva: a multiplicidade de níveis de análise no estudo das funções do cérebro; o confronto entre modelos computacionais e dinamicistas; o tratamento adequado das interações entre cérebro, corpo e ambiente; e os problemas filosóficos encontrados nas tentativas de se construir uma teoria neurobiológica dos processos conscientes e da linguagem humana.This essay pinpoints four key issues that are central to the epistemology of cognition-oriented neurosciences: the multiple levels of analysis in the study of the brain functions, the confrontation between the computational and dynamicist models; the proper treatment of the interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment; and the philosophical problems encountered in the attempts made to build a neurobiological theory of conscious and human language processes.
A particular system of brain mechanisms, called the retinoid system, is proposed as the evolutionary adaptation responsible for the existence of subjectivity and our sense of being here in a surrounding 3D world. The structural and dynamic properties of the retinoid system successfully predict a novel conscious experience in which the brain constructs a vivid visual representation of an object moving in space without a corresponding image projected to the retinas. Implications of the retinoid system for human creativity and our scientific understanding of the universe are suggested.
De Sousa's comprehensive two-part review of a diversity of contemporary approaches to the study of consciousness is highly welcome. He makes us aware of a proliferation of theoretical and empirical approaches targeting a common theme, but diverging in many ways. He skilfully accomplishes a classification of kinds of approach, identification of the main representatives, their contributions, and respective limitations. However, he does not show how the desired integration could be accomplished. Besides summarising De Sousa's efficient analytical work, I make critical comments and briefly report my contribution for the integration project.
The study of conscious experience has seen remarkable strides in the last ten years, reflecting important technological breakthroughs and the enormous efforts of researchers. Although still embroiled in debate, scientists are now beginning to find common ground in their understanding of consciousness, which may pave the way for a unified explanation of how and why we experience and understand the world around us. This book brings the subject to life with a metaphor that has been used to understand consciousness since the time of Aristotle-the mind as theater. Here consciousness is seen as a "stage" on which our sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings play to a vast, silent audience (the immensely complicated inner-workings of the brain's unconscious processes). Behind the scenes, silent context operators shape conscious experience; they include implicit expectations, self systems, and scene setters. Using this framework, the book presents compelling evidence that human consciousness rides on top of biologically ancient mechanisms. In humans it manifests itself in inner speech, imagery, perception, and voluntary control of thought and action. Topics like hypnosis, absorbed states of mind, adaptation to trauma, and the human propensity to project expectations on uncertainty, all fit into the expanded theater metaphor.
We perceive colour, shape, sound and touch 'bound together' in a single experience. The following arguments about this binding phenomenon are raised: (1) The individual signals passing from neurone to neurone are not bound together, whether as elements of information or physically. (2) Within a single cell, binding in terms of bringing together of information is potentially feasible. A physical substrate may also be available. (3) It is therefore proposed that a bound conscious experience must be a property of an individual cell, not of a group of cells. Since it is unlikely that one specific neurone is conscious, it is suggested that every neurone has a version of our consciousness, or at least some form of sentience. However absurd this may seem it appears to be consistent with the available evidence; arguably the only explanation that is. It probably does not alter the way we should expect to experience the world, but may help to explain the ways we seem to differ from digital computers and some of the paradoxes seen in mental illness. It predicts non-digital features of intracellular computation, for which there is already evidence, and which should be open to further experimental exploration. The arguments given may well prove flawed or the conclusion biologically or physically untenable, but the idea is raised for discussion not least because a formal demonstration that it is invalid may help to identify more fruitful avenues.
Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world as-perceived is a construct of perceptual processing and, therefore, part of the contents of consciousness. A finding which requires a Reflexive rather than a Dualist or Reductionist model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. The physical world as-perceived may, in turn be thought of as a biologically useful model of the world as described by physics. Redrawing the boundaries of consciousness to include the physical world as-perceived undermines the conventional separation of the 'mental' from the physical', and with it the very foundation of the Dualist-Reductionist debate. The alternative Reflexive model departs radically from current conventions, with consequences for many aspects of consciousness theory and research. Some of the consequences which bear on the internal consistency and intuitive plausibility of the model are explored, e.g. the causal sequence in perception, representationalism, a suggested resolution of the Realism versus Idealism debate, and the way manifest differences between physical events as-perceived and other conscious events (images, dreams, etc.) are to be construed. In the present paper I wish to challenge some of our most deeply-rooted assumptions about what consciousness is, by re-examining how consciousness, the human brain, and the surrounding physical world relate to each other.
Cognitive brain functions including sensory processing and control of behavior are understood as "neurocomputation" in axonal-dendritic synaptic networks of "integrate-and-fire" neurons. Cognitive neurocomputation with consciousness is accompanied by 30- to 90-Hz gamma synchrony electroencephalography (EEG), and non-conscious neurocomputation is not. Gamma synchrony EEG derives largely from neuronal groups linked by dendritic-dendritic gap junctions, forming transient syncytia ("dendritic webs") in input/integration layers oriented sideways to axonal-dendritic neurocomputational flow. As gap junctions open and close, a gamma-synchronized dendritic web can rapidly change topology and move through the brain as a spatiotemporal envelope performing collective integration and volitional choices correlating with consciousness. The "conscious pilot" is a metaphorical description for a mobile gamma-synchronized dendritic web as vehicle for a conscious agent/pilot which experiences and assumes control of otherwise non-conscious auto-pilot neurocomputation.
What neural mechanisms support our conscious perception of briefly presented stimuli? Some theories of conscious access postulate a key role of top-down amplification loops involving prefrontal cortex (PFC). To test this issue, we measured the visual backward masking threshold in patients with focal prefrontal lesions, using both objective and subjective measures while controlling for putative attention deficits. In all conditions of temporal or spatial attention cueing, the threshold for access to consciousness was systematically shifted in patients, particular after a lesion of the left anterior PFC. The deficit affected subjective reports more than objective performance, and objective performance conditioned on subjective visibility was essentially normal. We conclude that PFC makes a causal contribution to conscious visual perception of masked stimuli, and outline a dual-route signal detection theory of objective and subjective decision making.
When Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered from a cortico-subcortical stroke that led to complete paralysis with totally intact sensory and cognitive functions, he described his experience in The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly as ``something like a giant invisible diving-bell holds my whole body prisoner''. This horrifying condition also occurs as a consequence of a progressive neurological disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which involves progressive degeneration of all the motor neurons of the somatic motor system. These `locked-in' patients ultimately become unable to express themselves and to communicate even their most basic wishes or desires, as they can no longer control their muscles to activate communication devices. We have developed a new means of communication for the completely paralysed that uses slow cortical potentials (SCPs) of the electro-encephalogram to drive an electronic spelling device.
The constructive nature of perception can be demonstrated under viewing conditions that lead to vivid subjective impressions in the absence of direct input. When a low-contrast moving grating is divided by a large gap, observers report seeing a 'visual phantom' of the real grating extending through the blank gap region. Here, we report fMRI evidence showing that visual phantoms lead to enhanced activity in early visual areas that specifically represent the blank gap region. We found that neural filling-in effects occurred automatically in areas V1 and V2, regardless of where the subject attended. Moreover, when phantom-inducing gratings were paired with competing stimuli in a binocular rivalry display, subjects reported spontaneous fluctuations in conscious perception of the phantom accompanied by tightly coupled changes in early visual activity. Our results indicate that phantom visual experiences are closely linked to automatic filling-in of activity at the earliest stages of cortical processing.
Discovering the function of phenomenal states remains a formidable scientific challenge. Research on consciously penetrable conflicts (e.g., “pain-for-gain” scenarios) and impenetrable conflicts (as in the pupillary reflex, ventriloquism, and the McGurk effect [H. McGurk & J. MacDonald, 1976]) reveals that these states integrate diverse kinds of information to yield adaptive action. Supramodular interaction theory proposes that phenomenal states play an essential role in permitting interactions among supramodular response systems—agentic, independent, multimodal, information-processing structures defined by their concerns (e.g., instrumental action vs. certain bodily needs). Unlike unconscious processes (e.g., pupillary reflex), these processes may conflict with skeletal muscle plans, as described by the principle of parallel responses into skeletal muscle (PRISM). Without phenomenal states, these systems would be encapsulated and incapable of collectively influencing skeletomotor action.
Subliminal stimuli can be deeply processed and activate similar brain areas as consciously perceived stimuli. This raises the question which signatures of neural activity critically differentiate conscious from unconscious processing. Transient synchronization of neural activity has been proposed as a neural correlate of conscious perception. Here we test this proposal by comparing the electrophysiological responses related to the processing of visible and invisible words in a delayed matching to sample task. Both perceived and nonperceived words caused a similar increase of local (gamma) oscillations in the EEG, but only perceived words induced a transient long-distance synchronization of gamma oscillations across widely separated regions of the brain. After this transient period of temporal coordination, the electrographic signatures of conscious and unconscious processes continue to diverge. Only words reported as perceived induced (1) enhanced theta oscillations over frontal regions during the maintenance interval, (2) an increase of the P300 component of the event-related potential, and (3) an increase in power and phase synchrony of gamma oscillations before the anticipated presentation of the test word. We propose that the critical process mediating the access to conscious perception is the early transient global increase of phase synchrony of oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range.
It is plain that an individual's being conscious and an individual's being conscious of various things are both crucial for successful functioning. But it is far less clear how, if at all, it is also useful for a person's psychological states to occur consciously, as against those states occurring but without being conscious. Restricting attention to cognitive and desiderative states, a number of suggestions are current about how the consciousness of those states may be useful. It has been held that such consciousness enhances processes of rational thought and planning, intentional action, executive function, and the correction of complex reasoning. I examine these and related proposals in the light of various empirical findings and theoretical considerations and conclude that the consciousness of cognitive and desiderative states is unlikely to be useful in these or related ways. This undermines a reliance on evolutionary selection pressures in explaining why such states so often occur consciously in humans. I propose an alternative explanation, on which cognitive and desiderative states come to be conscious as a result of other highly useful psychological developments, some involving language. But on this explanation the consciousness of these states itself adds no significant function to that of those other developments.
A challenging goal in neuroscience is to be able to read out, or decode, mental content from brain activity. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have decoded orientation, position and object category from activity in visual cortex. However, these studies typically used relatively simple stimuli (for example, gratings) or images drawn from fixed categories (for example, faces, houses), and decoding was based on previous measurements of brain activity evoked by those same stimuli or categories. To overcome these limitations, here we develop a decoding method based on quantitative receptive-field models that characterize the relationship between visual stimuli and fMRI activity in early visual areas. These models describe the tuning of individual voxels for space, orientation and spatial frequency, and are estimated directly from responses evoked by natural images. We show that these receptive-field models make it possible to identify, from a large set of completely novel natural images, which specific image was seen by an observer. Identification is not a mere consequence of the retinotopic organization of visual areas; simpler receptive-field models that describe only spatial tuning yield much poorer identification performance. Our results suggest that it may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone.
Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years. The book is divided into three parts; Part one surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part two reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part three deals with some of the fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into to the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers. Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such, will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.
According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model." In Being No One, Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is. Building a bridge between the humanities and the empirical sciences of the mind, he develops new conceptual toolkits and metaphors; uses case studies of unusual states of mind such as agnosia, neglect, blindsight, and hallucinations; and offers new sets of multilevel constraints for the concept of consciousness. Metzinger's central question is: How exactly does strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerge out of objective events in the natural world? His epistemic goal is to determine whether conscious experience, in particular the experience of being someone that results from the emergence of a phenomenal self, can be analyzed on subpersonal levels of description. He also asks if and how our Cartesian intuitions that subjective experiences as such can never be reductively explained are themselves ultimately rooted in the deeper representational structure of our conscious minds.
Bradford Books imprint
There is little or no general agreement about what researchers should focus on when studying consciousness. The most active scientific studies often use the methods of Cognitive Neuroscience and focus mainly on vision. Other aspects and contents of consciousness, namely thoughts and emotions, are much less studied, possibly leading to a biased view of what consciousness is and how it works. In this essay we describe what we call a referential nucleus, implicit in much of consciousness research. In this context, 'consciousness' refers to (partially) reportable content experienced by living individuals. We then discuss the philosophical concept of a phenomenal world and another contemporary view that conscious experience involves, besides integration of information in the brain, participation in action-perception cycles in a natural, social and cultural environment. These views imply a need to reconceptualize 'qualia'as the con-scious aspect of subjective experiences, thus stating properties of consciousness that pose serious challenges to an exclusive approach via Cognitive Neuroscience, because experimental settings oversim-plify conscious experiences, narrowing them to fragments correlated with measured brain activity and behaviour. In conclusion we argue that a science of consciousness requires a broad interdisciplinary range of research, including qualitative methods from the Human Sciences.
Age-old battle lines over the puzzling nature of mental experience are shaping a modern resurgence in the study of consciousness. On one side are the long-dominant `physicalists' who view consciousness as an emergent property of the brain's neural networks. On the alternative, rebellious side are those who see a necessary added ingredient: proto-conscious experience intrinsic to reality, perhaps understandable through modern physics (panpsychists, pan-experientialists, `funda-mentalists'). It is argued here that the physicalist premise alone is unable to solve completely the difficult issues of consciousness and that to do so will require supplemental panpsychist/pan-experiential philosophy expressed in modern physics. In one scheme proto-conscious experience is a basic property of physical reality accessible to a quantum process associated with brain activity. The proposed process is Roger Penrose's `objective reduction' (OR), a self-organizing `collapse' of the quantum wave function related to instability at the most basic level of space-time geometry. In the Penrose–Hameroff model of `orchestrated objective reduction' (Orch OR), OR quantum computation occurs in cytoskeletal microtubules within the brain's neurons. The basic thesis is that consciousness involves brain activities coupled to self-organizing ripples in fundamental reality.
Established in 1982 as the leading reference on electroencephalography, Drs. Niedermeyer's and Lopes da Silva's text is now in its thoroughly updated Fifth Edition. An international group of experts provides comprehensive coverage of the neurophysiologic and technical aspects of EEG, evoked potentials, and magnetoencephalography, as well as the clinical applications of these studies in neonates, infants, children, adults, and older adults. This edition includes digital EEG and advances in areas such as neurocognition. Three new chapters cover the topics of Ultra-Fast EEG Frequencies, Ultra-Slow Activity, and Cortico-Muscular Coherence. Hundreds of EEG tracings and other illustrations complement the text.
Recent research on brain correlates of cognitive processes revealed the occurrence of global synchronization during conscious processing of sensory stimuli. In spite of technological progress in brain imaging, an explanation of the computational role of synchrony is still a highly controversial issue. In this study, we depart from an analysis of the usage of blood-oxygen-level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging for the study of cognitive processing, leading to the identification of evoked local field potentials as the vehicle for sensory patterns that compose conscious episodes. Assuming the "astrocentric hypothesis" formulated by James M. Robertson (astrocytes being the final stage of conscious processing), we propose that the role of global synchrony in perceptual conscious processing is to induce the transfer of information patterns embodied in local field potentials to astrocytic calcium waves, further suggesting that these waves are responsible for the "binding" of spatially distributed patterns into unitary conscious episodes.
As functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become a driving force in cognitive neuroscience, it is crucial to understand the neural basis of the fMRI signal. Here, we discuss a novel neurophysiological correlate of the fMRI signal, the slow cortical potential (SCP), which also seems to modulate the power of higher-frequency activity, the more established neurophysiological correlate of the fMRI signal. We further propose a hypothesis for the involvement of the SCP in the emergence of consciousness, and review existing data that lend support to our proposal. This hypothesis, unlike several previous theories of consciousness, is firmly rooted in physiology and as such is entirely amenable to empirical testing.
Contra Praetorius (2009), I present two brief arguments which support the existence within the human brain of a pre-reflective core self.
Prompted reports of recall of spontaneous, conscious experiences were collected in a no-input, no-task, no-response paradigm (30 random prompts to each of 13 healthy volunteers). The mentation reports were classified into visual imagery and abstract thought. Spontaneous 19-channel brain electric activity (EEG) was continuously recorded, viewed as series of momentary spatial distributions (maps) of the brain electric field and segmented into microstates, i.e. into time segments characterized by quasi-stable landscapes of potential distribution maps which showed varying durations in the sub-second range. Microstate segmentation used a data-driven strategy. Different microstates, i.e. different brain electric landscapes must have been generated by activity of different neural assemblies and therefore are hypothesized to constitute different functions. The two types of reported experiences were associated with significantly different microstates (mean duration 121 ms) immediately preceding the prompts; these microstates showed, across subjects, for abstract thought (compared to visual imagery) a shift of the electric gravity center to the left and a clockwise rotation of the field axis. Contrariwise, the microstates 2 s before the prompt did not differ between the two types of experiences. The results support the hypothesis that different microstates of the brain as recognized in its electric field implement different conscious, reportable mind states, i.e. different classes (types) of thoughts (mentations); thus, the microstates might be candidates for the 'atoms of thought'.
In young, first-episode, productive, medication-naive patients with schizophrenia, EEG microstates (building blocks of mentation) tend to be shortened. Koenig et al. [Koenig, T., Lehmann, D., Merlo, M., Kochi, K., Hell, D., Koukkou, M., 1999. A deviant EEG brain microstate in acute, neuroleptic-naive schizophrenics at rest. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 249, 205-211] suggested that shortening concerned specific microstate classes. Sequence rules (microstate concatenations, syntax) conceivably might also be affected. In 27 patients of the above type and 27 controls, from three centers, multichannel resting EEG was analyzed into microstates using k-means clustering of momentary potential topographies into four microstate classes (A-D). In patients, microstates were shortened in classes B and D (from 80 to 70 ms and from 94 to 82 ms, respectively), occurred more frequently in classes A and C, and covered more time in A and less in B. Topography differed only in class B where LORETA tomography predominantly showed stronger left and anterior activity in patients. Microstate concatenation (syntax) generally were disturbed in patients; specifically, the class sequence A-->C-->D-->A predominated in controls, but was reversed in patients (A-->D-->C-->A). In schizophrenia, information processing in certain classes of mental operations might deviate because of precocious termination. The intermittent occurrence might account for Bleuler's "double bookkeeping." The disturbed microstate syntax opens a novel physiological comparison of mental operations between patients and controls.
Over a decade ago, I introduced a large-scale theory of the cognitive brain which explained for the first time how the human brain is able to create internal models of its intimate world and invent models of a wider universe. An essential part of the theoretical model is an organization of neuronal mechanisms which I have named the Retinoid Model [Trehub, A. (1977). Neuronal models for cognitive processes: Networks for learning, perception and imagination. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 65, 141-169; Trehub, A. (1991). The Cognitive Brain: MIT Press]. This hypothesized brain system has structural and dynamic properties enabling it to register and appropriately integrate disparate foveal stimuli into a perspectival, egocentric representation of an extended 3D world scene including a neuronally tokened locus of the self which, in this theory, is the neuronal origin of retinoid space. As an integral part of the larger neuro-cognitive model, the retinoid system is able to perform many other useful perceptual and higher cognitive functions. In this paper, I draw on the hypothesized properties of this system to argue that neuronal activity within the retinoid structure constitutes the phenomenal content of consciousness and the unique sense of self that each of us experiences.
In this chapter, I sketch a conceptual framework which takes it as a starting point that conscious and unconscious cognition are rooted in the same set of interacting learning mechanisms and representational systems. On this view, the extent to which a representation is conscious depends in a graded manner on properties such as its stability in time or its strength. Crucially, these properties are accrued as a result of learning, which is in turn viewed as a mandatory process that always accompanies information processing. From this perspective, consciousness is best characterized as involving (1) a graded continuum defined over "quality of representation", such that availability to consciousness and to cognitive control correlates with quality, and (2) the implication of systems of metarepresentations. A first implication of these ideas is that the main function of consciousness is to make flexible, adaptive control over behavior possible. A second, much more speculative implication, is that we learn to be conscious. This I call the "radical plasticity thesis"--the hypothesis that consciousness emerges in systems capable not only of learning about their environment, but also about their own internal representations of it.
This review examines recent advances in the study of brain correlates of consciousness. First, we briefly discuss some useful distinctions between consciousness and other brain functions. We then examine what has been learned by studying global changes in the level of consciousness, such as sleep, anesthesia, and seizures. Next we consider some of the most common paradigms used to study the neural correlates for specific conscious percepts and examine what recent findings say about the role of different brain regions in giving rise to consciousness for that percept. Then we discuss dynamic aspects of neural activity, such as sustained versus phasic activity, feedforward versus reentrant activity, and the role of neural synchronization. Finally, we briefly consider how a theoretical analysis of the fundamental properties of consciousness can usefully complement neurobiological studies.
Consciousness: The Radical Plasticity Thesis', in: Models of Brain and Mind: Physical, Computational, and Psychological Approaches
- A Cleeremans
Cleeremans, A. (2008), 'Consciousness: The Radical Plasticity Thesis', in: Models of Brain and Mind: Physical, Computational, and Psychological
Approaches. Progress in Brain Research 168, eds. R. Banerjee & B.K.
Chakrabarti (Amsterdam: Elsevier).
Consciousness as Reality Format
- B Merker
Merker, B. (2009), 'Consciousness as Reality Format', unpublished paper.
Who was Mrs Willett? Landsapes and Dynamics of the Mind (Exeter: Imprint Academic)
- C Nunn
Nunn, C. (2010), Who was Mrs Willett? Landsapes and Dynamics of the Mind
(Exeter: Imprint Academic). To be published.
Two arguments for a pre-reflective core self
- A Trehub
Trehub, A. (2009), 'Two arguments for a pre-reflective core self: Commentary on
Praetorius (2009)', Consciousness and Cognition, 18, pp. 339-340.