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Do advances in neuropsychological studies of consciousness demonstrate it to be just a state or function of the brain? A review of Stanislas Dehaene (2014) Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes our Thoughts. New York: Viking Penguin.
Abstract
This online version of my review of Stanislas Dehaene’s (2014) book on Consciousness and the Brain adds a descriptive title, but is otherwise as it appears in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. In it, I conclude that the book offers an excellent introduction to the neuropsychology of consciousness that focuses largely on developments that have taken place over the last 15 years or so. The book ranges widely, starting with an account of how the processes that support consciousness in the brain have become increasingly open to experimental study, giving a fresh analysis of the extent of preconscious/unconscious processing, moving on to suggest what consciousness is good for when it appears, how to detect its presence by use of third-person observable neurophysiological signatures, incorporating these signatures into a version of the currently popular “global workspace model” of consciousness—and finally, suggesting some clinical application of the emerging research and some speculations about new frontiers, for example how the emerging science might be applied to the assessment of consciousness in babies and non-human animals. Dehaene also does not shy away from fundamental philosophical questions, adopting an unashamedly materialist-reductionist view of the nature of consciousness and mind, which, he believes, follows naturally from the advances in research that he surveys. In my review I accordingly address the book’s three central themes: (a) the advances in neuropsychological understanding of the conditions for consciousness in the human brain, (b) whether the emerging research leads naturally to a materialist-reductionist view of the nature of consciousness and mind, and (c) the scope and possible limits of the global workspace model of consciousness. Overall, I applaud the science that the book describes, but unravel the problems associated with Dehaene’s materialist reductionism.
... 24 For a detailed analysis, seeVelmans (2000Velmans ( chapter 12, 2009a and, in particular,Velmans (2012b) which also gives a critique of standard Darwinian accounts of the evolution of consciousness in terms of random gene mutation and survival fitness, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245032935. On the last point see also the critiques inVelmans (2011Velmans ( , 2014. ...
This chapter examines the integrative nature of reflexive monism (RM), a psychological/philosophical model of a reflexive, self-observing universe that can accommodate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences in a natural, non-reductive way that avoids both the problems of reductive materialism and the (inverse) pitfalls of reductive idealism. To contextualize the ancient roots of the model, the chapter touches briefly on classical models of consciousness, mind and soul and how these differ in a fundamental way from how mind and consciousness are viewed in contemporary Western philosophy and psychological science. The chapter then travels step by step from such contemporary views towards reflexive monism, and towards the end of the chapter, to more detailed comparisons with Hindu Vedanta and Samkhya philosophy and with Cosmopsychism (a recently emergent, directly relevant area of philosophy of mind).
According to RM there never was a separation between what we normally think of as the “physical world” and what we think of as our “conscious experience”. In terms of its phenomenology, the phenomenal physical world is part-of conscious experience not apart-from it. This phenomenal world can be thought of as a biologically useful representation of what the world is like, although it is not the world as-described-by modern physics, and it is not the thing itself—supporting a form of indirect (critical) realism. The analysis then outlines how 3D phenomenal worlds are constructed by the mind/brain, focusing specifically on perceptual projection, and then demonstrates how normal, first-person conscious experiences (e.g. of phenomenal worlds) and their associated, third-person viewable neural correlates can be understood as dual manifestations of an underlying psychophysical mind, which can, in turn, be understood as a psychophysical form of information processing. This dual-aspect monism combines ontological monism with a form of epistemological dualism in which first- and third-person perspectives on the nature of mind are complementary and mutually irreducible—a principle that turns out to have wide-ranging applications for the study and understanding of consciousness.
The chapter then considers the evolution and wider distribution of consciousness (beyond humans) through a brief analysis of the many forms of discontinuity theory versus continuity theory and argues that to avoid the “hard problem” of consciousness one may need to treat its existence as fundamental, and, as co-evolving with the evolution of its associated material forms. This, in turn, takes one to a central issue: What does consciousness actually do? The analysis argues that its central function is to real-ize existence (to know it in a way that makes it subjectively real). With these foundations in place we then come to the heart of the essay—the ways in which reflexive monism provides a very different view of the nature of the universe to those offered either by dualism or materialist reductionism. As summarised in the last paragraph of this section, “In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”
The essay then considers the precise ways in which this reflexive monist understanding of “consciousness” and “mind” relates to later developments in Vedic philosophy and suggests a way of bridging contemporary Western and classical Vedic ways of understanding consciousness and mind. Finally, the chapter considers what can be said of mystical experience and the ground of being, following the principle that this ground must have the power to both manifest the universe in the form that science shows it to be and our ability to experience the universe in the way that we do. In this, RM is shown to be a dual-aspect monist form of cosmopsychism—a recent area of development within philosophy of mind. The essay compares and contrasts this with idealist versions of cosmopsychism and argues that RM allows for an integrated understanding of realism versus idealism, dualism versus monism, how ordinary experience relates to mystical experience, and how consciousness relates to mind. RM also provides an ‘open’ conceptual system that can, in principle, incorporate a range of parapsychological effects.
... 24 For a detailed analysis, seeVelmans (2000Velmans ( chapter 12, 2009a and, in particular,Velmans (2012b) which also gives a critique of standard Darwinian accounts of the evolution of consciousness in terms of random gene mutation and survival fitness, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245032935. On the last point see also the critiques inVelmans (2011Velmans ( , 2014. ...
This is an Introduction to "Is the Universe Conscious? Reflexive Monism and the Ground of Being" an invited chapter for E. Kelly and P. Marshall (eds.) Consciousness Unbound. Rowman and Littlefield (2021--in press). The presentation introduces ancient dualist and monist attempts to understand how consciousness, mind, self and soul relate to brain, body and the material world. It then contrasts modern dualist and materialist- reductionist visions of the universe with reflexive monism, the view that the universe is reflexive and self-observing. It explains ways in which the latter requires a paradigm shift in which consciousness and its material accompaniments are entirely natural consequences of what the universe is like, exemplified by the dual-aspect monist nature of the human mind and that of other sentient beings. The presentation then introduces different ways to explore the ground of being, and makes connections with Eastern as well as Western philosophy. The presentation is publicly available at https://youtu.be/6AqijBqX7z0
... Note however that the claim that information in the global workspace correlates with, or is associated with conscious contents, does not warrant the conclusion that these are ontologically identical, or that consciousness carries out the functions of the global workspace. See R23 and the detailed discussion of this issue inVelmans (2014). ...
This is the second of four online Companions to Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology), a 4-volume collection of Major Works on Consciousness commissioned by Routledge, London. The Companion to Volume 2 focuses on the detailed relationship of phenomenal consciousness to mental processing described either functionally (as human information processing) or in terms of neural activity, in the ways typically explored by cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Beginning with reviews of functional differences between unconscious, preconscious and conscious processing and the different senses in which mental processing can be said to be "conscious", the readings turn to seminal work on blindsight and related phenomena, experimental evidence of perception without awareness, ways to combine "subjective" and "objective" measures of awareness, evidence for distinct neural pathways governing visual awareness and visual control of motor acts, and the complex ways in which consciousness of action relates to both voluntary and involuntary acts. The readings then focus on the intimate links between attention and consciousness, starting with the writings of William James and surveying the extensive work on this subject over the last 60 years that explores the relationships between and attended and non-attended processing, preconscious and conscious processing, and attention, primary (working, short-term) memory and consciousness. The readings go on to survey the evidence that attention contributes to the "neural binding" required for an integrated conscious experience and evidence that attention (in humans) is dissociable from consciousness, necessary for consciousness, but not sufficient for consciousness. The readings then turn to research on "inattentional blindness", and conclude with a review of Baars' global workspace theory, which integrates many theories and findings in this area into a coherent, global model. The Companion then summarises seminal readings on learning, memory and consciousness; the extensive research on mental imagery, long thought to epitomize private, subjective conscious experience-and consequently ruled out of science by reductive, materialist philosophies of mind; the complex relations of consciousness to sleep and dreaming; the development of consciousness in human infants; and the debates surrounding, and extensive evidence for consciousness in non-human animals, with attendant consequences for their humane treatment. As with the other Companions to these Volumes there are many links to background resources (marked in pink) and to the selected readings themselves (marked in blue).
This is a pre-publication version of a paper given at an invitation-only International Symposium on The Return of Consciousness: A new science on old questions, on 14th-15th June, 2015 in Avesta Manor, Sweden, hosted by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation. The paper summarizes the basic differences between dualist, reductionist and reflexive models of perception, clarifies why these differences are important to an understanding of consciousness, and provides references to how these contrasts have entered into philosophical and scientific discussions over the 25 years since they were first introduced in Velmans (1990) ‘Consciousness, Brain and the Physical World’, Philosophical Psychology, 3, 77-99. The paper concludes that there never was an unbridgeable divide separating “physical phenomena” from the “contents of consciousness”. Physical objects and events as perceived are part of the contents of consciousness—which alters the nature of the “hard problem of consciousness” and provides the departure point for reflexive monism.
What are the limits of unconscious language processing? Can language circuits process simple grammatical constructions unconsciously and integrate the meaning of several unseen words? Using behavioural priming and electroencephalography (EEG), we studied a specific rule-based linguistic operation traditionally thought to require conscious cognitive control: the negation of valence. In a masked priming paradigm, two masked words were successively (Experiment 1) or simultaneously presented (Experiment 2), a modifier ('not'/'very') and an adjective (e.g. 'good'/'bad'), followed by a visible target noun (e.g. 'peace'/'murder'). Subjects indicated whether the target noun had a positive or negative valence. The combination of these three words could either be contextually consistent (e.g. 'very bad - murder') or inconsistent (e.g. 'not bad - murder'). EEG recordings revealed that grammatical negations could unfold partly unconsciously, as reflected in similar occipito-parietal N400 effects for conscious and unconscious three-word sequences forming inconsistent combinations. However, only conscious word sequences elicited P600 effects, later in time. Overall, these results suggest that multiple unconscious words can be rapidly integrated and that an unconscious negation can automatically 'flip the sign' of an unconscious adjective. These findings not only extend the limits of subliminal combinatorial language processes, but also highlight how consciousness modulates the grammatical integration of multiple words.
Definitions of consciousness need to be sufficiently broad to include all examples of conscious states and sufficiently narrow to exclude entities, events and processes that are not conscious. Unfortunately, deviations from these simple principles are common in modern consciousness studies, with consequent confusion and internal division in the field. The present paper gives examples of ways in which definitions of consciousness can be either too broad or too narrow. It also discusses some of the main ways in which pre-existing theoretical commitments (about the nature of consciousness, mind and world) have intruded into definitions. Similar problems can arise in connection with how a 'conscious process' is defined, potentially obscuring the way that conscious phenomenology actually relates to its neural correlates and antecedent causes in the brain, body and external world. Once a definition of 'consciousness' is firmly grounded in its phenomenology, investigations of its ontology and its relationships to entities, events and processes that are not conscious can begin, and this may in time transmute the meaning (or sense) of the term. As our scientific understanding of these relationships deepen, our understanding of what consciousness is will also deepen. A similar transmutation of meaning (with growth of knowledge) occurs with basic terms in physics such as 'energy', and 'time'.
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.
The View from Within, edited by the late Francisco Varela in collaboration with Jonathan Shear, was published in 1999 and has proved a major stimulus to the scientific investigation of first-person methodologies in psychology and philosophy of mind. Ten years on, Claire Petitmengin has organized a collection of essays that examine and refine the research program on first-person methods defined in The View from Within, with contributions based on empirical research. She has kept close to the spirit of the earlier book, in which Varela encouraged a precise description of the very process of becoming aware of one's experience and describing it.
The relationship of mind to brain is investigated from the viewpoint of physiological psychology, with consideration of philosophical and historical perspectives, theory, methodology, instruments, and empirical findings. Matters which are presented include (a) problems and issues; (b) a history of the mind-body problem, with both philosophical and psychobiological views; (c) neuroanatomy; (d) definition and measures of the mind; (e) localization of mental functions; (f) representation and coding, including background, methods, findings, and theories; (g) neural correlates of learning, including basic concepts, findings, possible mechanisms, and models; and (h) emerging principles in the field. The 3 main divisions which were found to best organize the information available in this area of study are localization of function in the brain, representation and coding, and dynamic change. (46 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)