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Mental Phenomena as Causal Determinants in Brain Function
Abstract
The central concepts concerning consciousness that I shall try to defend have already been presented in some detail (Sperry, 1952, 1964, 1965). Accordingly, I shall review them only in brief outline, devoting the bulk of the discussion to various peripheral aspects and implications that previously have had less emphasis. At the outset let me make it clear that when I refer to consciousness I mean that kind of experience that is lost when one faints or sinks into a coma. It is the subjective experience that is lacking during dreamless sleep, that may be obliterated by a blow on the head, by anoxia, or by pressure on the inner walls of the third ventricle during brain surgery. On the positive side we can include as conscious events the various sensations elicitable by a local electric current applied to the unanesthetized brain, or the pain of a phantom amputated limb, as well as most of our waking subjective experience, including self-consciousness.
... Definition (4*) allows us to agree with Sperry (1976) that consciousness is emergent, for while mental properties supervene on neural properties, the ''conscious subjective properties ... have causal potency in regulating the course of brain events; that is, the mental forces or properties exert a regulative control influence in brain physiology' ' (p. 165). ...
... Alexander insists that an emergent property is not epiphenomenal, for to suppose it lacks causal powers is to suppose ''something to exist in nature which has nothing to do, no purpose to serve, a species of noblesse which depends on the work of its inferiors, but is kept for show and might as well, and undoubtedly would in time be abolished'' (1920, p. 8). Sperry (1976) takes ''the stand that wholes and their properties are real phenomena, and that these and their causal potency are just as important as the properties of the parts ...,'' since ''the spatial and the temporal relationships of the constituent parts of a system have in themselves important causally efficacy over and above the properties of the parts per se' ' (p. 167). ...
Here I offer a precise analysis of what it takes for a property to count as emergent. The features widely considered crucial to emergence include novelty, unpredictability, supervenience, relationality, and downward causal influence. By acknowledging each of these distinctive features, the definition provided below captures an important sense in which
the whole can be more than the sum of its parts.
... So, indeed, as premise (3) holds, everything that exists is caused or a cause because reality is a causally connected unity. Now, one could object that abstract objects are causally inert, that is, they are uncaused and they do not cause anything 18 . As such they falsify premise (3). ...
... This is impossible since there is nothing outside the sum of all objects. 18 Both Rene van Woudenberg and Jeroen de Ridder pointed to this specific objection. 19 This suggestion was provided by Jeroen de Ridder. ...
... However valid the frequent proposal that conscious mental occurrences are some kind of process or event in the brain may be (e.g., Armstrong, 1984;Feigl, 1981;Sperry, 1976Sperry, , 1980, this proposal does not move psychology far along in its effort to develop a conception of of the conscious mental occurrences. As Freud (1940Freud ( /1964b stated, even if the immediate data of consciousness included, as they do not, an apprehension of the relation between consciousness and the brain, "it would at the most afford an exact localization of the processes of consciousness and would give us no help towards understanding them" (pp. ...
... My case in support of the latter claim about James in The Principles is presented in detail in a recent two-part article (Natsoulas, 1994(Natsoulas, -1995(Natsoulas, , 1995(Natsoulas, -1996b. There, among other things, I liken James's view to that of Puccetti (1981Puccetti ( , 1983Puccetti ( , 1985, who argued-largely based on research with people who have undergone complete forebrain commissurotomy (see, e.g., Sperry, 1976Sperry, , 1977Sperry, Zaidel, & Zaidel, 1979)-that simultaneously flowing in every intact human being are normally two streams of consciousness, corresponding to the two cerebral hemispheres, that is, to certain of the processes therein, (cf. Bogen, 1981Bogen, , 1986. ...
... However valid the frequent proposal that conscious mental occurrences are some kind of process or event in the brain may be (e.g., Armstrong, 1984;Feigl, 1981;Sperry, 1976Sperry, , 1980, this proposal does not move psychology far along in its effort to develop a conception of of the conscious mental occurrences. As Freud (1940Freud ( /1964b stated, even if the immediate data of consciousness included, as they do not, an apprehension of the relation between consciousness and the brain, "it would at the most afford an exact localization of the processes of consciousness and would give us no help towards understanding them" (pp. ...
... My case in support of the latter claim about James in The Principles is presented in detail in a recent two-part article (Natsoulas, 1994(Natsoulas, -1995(Natsoulas, , 1995(Natsoulas, -1996b. There, among other things, I liken James's view to that of Puccetti (1981Puccetti ( , 1983Puccetti ( , 1985, who argued-largely based on research with people who have undergone complete forebrain commissurotomy (see, e.g., Sperry, 1976Sperry, , 1977Sperry, Zaidel, & Zaidel, 1979)-that simultaneously flowing in every intact human being are normally two streams of consciousness, corresponding to the two cerebral hemispheres, that is, to certain of the processes therein, (cf. Bogen, 1981Bogen, , 1986. ...
This is the fifth of a series of six articles examining respectively the six concepts of consciousness identified in the main entries of the Oxford English Dictionary under the word. I call the concept of consciousness5 the unitive meaning because it is said to refer to the totality of mental-occurrence instances that constitute a person's conscious being. The present article consists mainly of an effort to answer the question of which totality of mental-occurrence instances it is to which the fifth concept refers. Four possible answers are considered, and the fourth, derived form Locke, is found to capture best the dictionary's meaning. Accordingly, consciousness5 is a certain subjectively determined unity of mental-occurrence instances mat is further specified, of course, in the article. However, I also consider, finally, that the compilers of the dictionary may have had something more objective in mind as well, another meaning toward which the word is tending if it has not already arrived mere. This further sense may amount to an identification of consciousness with those components of James's stream that he described as “the very core and nucleus of our self as we know it, the very sanctuary of our life.”
... Zihinsel durumlar, izole bir alandaki beyin işlevlerine her koşulda doğru yanıtlar vermez (Gazzaniga, 2018;Sperry, 1976). Aslında, beynin çok amaçlı 'modülsüz' bir organ olduğu görüşü kabul edilse bile (ki bu görüş desteklenmemektedir ve modası geçmiştir), böyle bir organ yine de modüler bir bilinç üretebilir. ...
Bilim giderek daha disiplinler arası bir hal alıp sosyal bilim branşlarının hızla büyümesi ile beraber daha önce beşerî çalışmalarla daha az bağlantılı olduğu düşünülen ‘doğa’ bilimleriyle bütünleşmiştir. Özellikle psikoloji branşı artık tıp, biyoloji, sosyoloji, genetik ve bilişsel bilimlerden gelen anlayışlara büyük ölçüde bağlıdır ve bu yıllardan beri süregelmektedir. Dahası, psikoloji evrim teorisine dayanarak, insan beyni ve davranışının daha oturaklı bir açıklamasını yapacak noktaya doğru ilerlemiştir. Adli Bilimler (kriminoloji ve ceza adaleti) de benzer bir ilerleme kaydetmeye hazırlanmaktadır. Halihazırda disiplinler arası alanlar olsa da evrimsel ve bilişsel bilimlerin suç ve adalet hakkındaki mevcut bilgileri bütünleştirebileceğini, üzerinde çalışılacak yeni ve ilgi çekici sorular sormaya yardımcı olabileceğini ve bu alanları yalnızca bilim dünyasına değil, genel olarak topluma da fayda sağlayacak şekilde ileriye taşıyabileceğini savunmaktayız.
... Fortunately, there is an idea that could lend more depth to our current anthropological understanding of holism while explicitly avoiding reductionism: I am referring to the notion of 'downward causation', defined as "the causation of lower-level effects by higher-level entities" (Paolini Pauletti and Orilia 2017: 1). This notion, which was formulated in the study of emergence in biological systems (Campbell 1974), has been extensively debated in philosophy and science since its introduction (Sperry 1976, Popper and Eccles 1977, Kim 1992, Simons 2002, Hulswit 2005Bickhard andCampbell 2011, Gillet 2016), and has been applied to subjects such as textual criticism (Bøgh Andersen 2011), and sociology (Hodgson 2002, Elder-Vass 2011, where it has been posited as a plausible mechanism of social action. ...
The relationship between cosmology and social life has been a long-standing theoretical problem in anthropology: why do people in many different societies often assert that their social actions proceed not from themselves, but from ancestors, gods and cosmological forces? Despite general calls for a holistic understanding of social life and native ideas, cosmology as a topic in social anthropology has been understood in a reductionist sense, as a system of representations that ‘justifies’ or guides the actions of people within a social system, a reflection of more ‘real’ or ‘rational’ underlying notions uncovered by the anthropologist. Inspired by non-reductionist models of causation which arose in the study of emergence in biological systems, this thesis proposes to understand cosmological action in social life as an instance of “downward causation”, a phenomenon where a high-level entity may influence and exert causation upon its own constituent parts. Inspired by my own ethnographic study of the cosmology of the K’iche’ Maya of Guatemala and its influence in concrete lives, I propose a twist to former sociological applications of this concept. In K’iche’ cosmology, sacred altars are actual containers of copies of cosmological entities and powers; by interacting with these places, people can act interact with ancestors and the gods, changing their own social fortunes and even acting in behalf of cosmological forces. Following the proposals of the ‘ontological turn’ to take people’s conceptions about their own social experiences seriously, I propose that, in anthropology, downward causation must be ‘flipped upside down’ to better grasp the point of view of the other: instead of conceiving cosmology as an emergent property of social systems which acts upon its own constituent parts, we should understand social agents as emergent properties of cosmological systems, defined by their capacity of exerting cosmological actions upon social life.
... Sperry fundamentó la teoría de los hemisferios cerebrales [18]. El cerebro humano se encuentra formado por dos hemisferios divididos en cuatro lóbulos cada uno y por el corpus callosum como vía de comunicación entre ellos. ...
En este artículo se presenta una revisión de los estilos de aprendizaje más relevantes, así como los perfiles de jugadores y de los elementos que permiten realizar un proceso de gamificación del aprendizaje en Moodle. El objetivo es el crear un modelo unificado de estilos de aprendizaje y perfiles de jugador, para luego realizar una propuesta de arquitectura de un sistema capaz de recomendar actividades de Moodle según el perfil de jugador y el estilo de aprendizaje.
... 32, nº 1 (enero) tal de contenidos conscientes coherentes implica la cooperación de grandes poblaciones de neuronas ampliamente distribuidas por todo el cerebro (Bogen, 1995;Crick y Koch, 1995;John, Easton y Isenhart, 1997). Si la conciencia es un fenómeno emergente de la actividad sistémica del cerebro (Froufe, 1984), como todo fenómeno emergente, tiene la capacidad de influir retroactivamente en el sistema del que emerge (Sperry, 1976), aunque cabe la posibilidad de que esta influencia se lleve a cabo a través de otros elementos o partes del sistema (Bunge, 1985). ...
During the predominance, in the cognitive science, of the classic symbolic-computational paradigm hardly was paid attention to the neurobiological study of the consciousness. With the appearance of the connectionist models which start of a more naturalized and less abiologic conception of the psychology, was taken a radical turn in this subject. Since this current the explanation of the mental phenomenons needs to include references to the biological support because is taken like a computational model the running of the nervous system. After describing the works of the neuroscientist about the neuronal correlates on the consciousness, we analyze since a critical perspective, the limitations and the weaknesses of them refered basically to the conceptual troubles of the connectionism, to the objections to the localizacionism, to the limitations of the cerebral image techniques, to the lack of stablishment of the brain-mind causal relations and to the exclusivist and reductionist pretension of the most part of the investigations.
... My intention was to present ideas and images towards a theory proper that emerged from a phenomenological study of insight-perception and introspective analyses, relating it to experimental studies of cerebral functions: e.g., evoked potentials (Regan, 1972;Bodis-Wollner, 1982), positron emission tomography (Heiss and Phelps, 1983), and lateralization (Sperry, 1968(Sperry, , 1976Sperry et al., 1969;Gazzaniga, 1972). I had wanted to verify my hypotheses, but life had other plans for me in the field of Contemporary Art. ...
Intentional actions cover a broad spectrum of human behaviors involving consciousness, creativity, innovative thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, and other related cognitive processes self-evident in the arts and sciences. The author discusses the brain activity associated with action intentions, connecting this activity with the creative process. Focusing on one seminal artwork created and exhibited over a period of three decades, Thought Assemblies (1979–82, 2014), he describes how this symbolic art interprets the neuropsychological processes of intuition and analytical reasoning. It explores numerous basic questions concerning observed interactions between artistic and scientific inquiries, conceptions, perceptions, and representations connecting mind and nature. Pointing to some key neural mechanisms responsible for forming and implementing intentions, he considers why and how we create, discover, invent, and innovate. He suggests ways of metaphorical thinking and symbolic modeling that can help integrate the neuroscience of intentional actions with the neuroscience of creativity, art and neuroaesthetics.
... The Gestalt position on emergence does not acknowledge mental events as having causal efficacy. Instead mental events are seen as correlates of lower level neural events and thus are epiphenomena1 (Sperry, 1976). ...
... What might be wrong with a psychology that affirms that freedom makes spiritual life possible, just as the wetness of water makes biological life possible? These were questions addressed by scientists such as Sherrington (1955), Sperry (1976), Penfield (1975), Pribram (19701985) and Eccles (1976) in response to earlier, more classically behavioristic stances such as Gilbert Ryle's "ghost-in-the-machine" (1949). ...
Scientific philosophers examine the nature and significance of levels of organization, a core structural principle in the biological sciences.
This volume examines the idea of levels of organization as a distinct object of investigation, considering its merits as a core organizational principle for the scientific image of the natural world. It approaches levels of organization—roughly, the idea that the natural world is segregated into part–whole relationships of increasing spatiotemporal scale and complexity—in terms of its roles in scientific reasoning as a dynamic, open-ended idea capable of performing multiple overlapping functions in distinct empirical settings.
The contributors—scientific philosophers with longstanding ties to the biological sciences—discuss topics including the philosophical and scientific contexts for an inquiry into levels; whether the concept can actually deliver on its organizational promises; the role of levels in the development and evolution of complex systems; conditional independence and downward causation; and the extension of the concept into the sociocultural realm. Taken together, the contributions embrace the diverse usages of the term as aspects of the big picture of levels of organization.
Contributors
Jan Baedke, Robert W. Batterman, Daniel S. Brooks, James DiFrisco, Markus I. Eronen, Carl Gillett, Sara Green, James Griesemer, Alan C. Love, Angela Potochnik, Thomas Reydon, Ilya Tëmkin, Jon Umerez, William C. Wimsatt, James Woodward
Evolutionary psychiatry attempts to explain and examine the development and prevalence of psychiatric disorders through the lens of evolutionary and adaptationist theories. In this edited volume, leading international evolutionary scholars present a variety of Darwinian perspectives that will encourage readers to consider 'why' as well as 'how' mental disorders arise. Using insights from comparative animal evolution, ethology, anthropology, culture, philosophy and other humanities, evolutionary thinking helps us to re-evaluate psychiatric epidemiology, genetics, biochemistry and psychology. It seeks explanations for persistent heritable traits shaped by selection and other evolutionary processes, and reviews traits and disorders using phylogenetic history and insights from the neurosciences as well as the effects of the modern environment. By bridging the gap between social and biological approaches to psychiatry, and encouraging bringing the evolutionary perspective into mainstream psychiatry, this book will help to inspire new avenues of research into the causation and treatment of mental disorders.
The inadequacy of taxis control systems (linear chains or hierarchical structures) to explain or replace spontaneously ordered complex systems (the CNS, social orders, or markets in economics) requires overviewing quantitatively and qualitatively more powerful control systems, such as Polanyi's polycentric orders and von Foerster's coalitional structures. This chapter highlights these control systems' capacities. It further outlines differences between simple physical systems and complex functional domains, and the duality of descriptions necessary to account for the creativity of complex living organisms and social phenomena. While spontaneous complex cosmic structures are made up of (often many) taxis control systems, it is not possible for taxis organization to substitute for polycentric or coalitional order. Constructivist “progressive” programs literally step backward to primitivism, and must inevitably be dictatorial control structures.KeywordsTaxis controlPolycentric ordersSpontaneous complex orders
Science has become increasingly interdisciplinary, marked by rapid expansion of social science fields melding with “natural” sciences previously considered less relevant for the study of humans. Psychology, in particular, now depends heavily on insights from medicine, biology, sociology, genetics, and cognitive science, and has done so for years. By grounding itself in evolutionary theory, moreover, psychology has moved toward a more mature science of human mind and behavior. The crime sciences—criminology and criminal justice—are poised to make similar progress. While already interdisciplinary fields, we make the case that the evolutionary and cognitive sciences can unify existing knowledge about crime and justice, help to pose new and interesting questions to study, and can push the fields forward in ways that will benefit both the scientific world as well as society, in general.
Inter‐hemispheric inhibition’ is used frequently to describe the action of one hemisphere in suppressing or impeding processing in its counterpart. It is widely believed that this is required in order to prevent a bilateral cerebrum giving rise to simultaneous and potentially competing outputs. It is argued here that a fundamental role of inter‐hemispheric inhibition is to support contrast enhancing and integrative functions by co‐opting the capacities of the two cerebral hemispheres. Drawing upon an extensive body of empirical data, derived largely from animal models, and associated theoretical modelling, it is demonstrated that inter‐hemispheric projections act via mechanisms such as surround/lateral inhibition. The principal functional unit of callosal influence comprises a facilitatory centre and a depressing peripheral zone, which together shape the influence of converging inputs to pyramidal neurons. Inter‐hemispheric inhibition is an instance of a more general feature of mammalian neural systems, whereby inhibitory interneurons act not simply to prevent over‐excitation but to sculpt the output of specific circuits. The narrowing of the excitatory focus that occurs through crossed surround inhibition is a highly conserved motif of transcallosal interactions in mammalian sensory and motor cortices. A case is presented that the ‘inter‐hemispheric competition’ model has been sustained, and its clinical derivatives promoted, by erroneous assumptions concerning that revealed by investigative techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The alternative perspective offered here is also shown to be consistent with known associations between the structural integrity of callosal projections and the magnitude of the motor deficits that are exhibited following stroke. image
The subject of this edited volume is the idea of levels of organization: roughly, the idea that the natural world is segregated into part-whole relationships of increasing spatiotemporal scale and complexity. The book comprises a collection of essays that raise the idea of levels into its own topic of analysis. Owing to the wide prominence of the idea of levels, the scope of the volume is aimed at theoreticians, philosophers, and practicing researchers of all stripes in the life sciences. The volume’s contributions reflect this diversity, and draw from fields such as developmental biology, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, ecology, cell biology, and neuroscience. The book presents wide-ranging novel insights on causation and levels, the hierarchical structure of evolution, the role of levels in biological theory, and more.
En la actualidad si bien existen juegos
enfocados al desarrollo de habilidades lógico-matemáticas
dirigidos a lograr la atención de niños con TDAH, no hay
aplicaciones que desarrollen habilidades para la resolución de
problemas matemáticos. Alineado a esta problemática se llevó
a cabo el desarrollo de un juego serio que permita que los niños
alcancen un aprendizaje significativo y a la par que sus demás
compañeros. En este estudio se lleva a cabo la evaluación de la
interfaz de tal herramienta considerando que sus usuarios son
niños entre 8 y 12 años diagnosticados con este trastorno. La
evaluación se llevó a cabo mediante un experimento de Mago
de Oz. Se aplicó un cuestionario de CSUQ a 7 docentes quienes
interactúan con estos niños, se recolectaron sus datos generales
como sexo y edad. El estudio indica que la interfaz actual es
utilizable, sin embargo, necesita algunas mejoras para que
pueda ser utilizado por los niños.
. In the article author analyses the extent to which it is possible to regard the Aristotelian conception of the soul as actually necessary and applicable for modern neuroscience. The framework in which this objective is going to be accomplished is provided by the idea of the coexistence of the “manifest” and “scientific” images of the world and persons, as introduced by Wilfrid Sellars. In subsequent sections, author initially formulates an answer to the questions of what it is that Aristotle sought to explain with his conception of soul as formal cause, and how this notion could be portrayed in terms drawn from contemporary neurological science. It is author’s intention to show that no other concepts—be they the Cartesian “mind” or a Chalmers-style “self”—come anywhere close to matching the breadth of scope of Aristotelian “soul”. At the same time, though, analysis carried out here do not intend to undertake any kind of defence of the soul as a spiritual entity of the sort popular where religious faith is concerned, namely as an entity separable from the body, immortal, and inimitably tied to God. Then, in the second major part of the article, author analyses the extent to which the Aristotelian conception of the soul can be thought of as involving criteria of the sort that we encounter in the contemporary theory of strong emergence. According to the author the theory of strong emergence has, as a heuristic theory, quite general predictive and explanatory power as regards the field of human thought and behaviour.
Among problems psychologists of consciousness face is how to conceive of those mental states, events, or processes with which people have an intimate familiarity in their own case. Psychologists must not only determine the causal roles these occurrences play, but also their intrinsic properties. This article seeks to contribute to understanding what and how the conscious mental occurrences are in themselves, starting from W. James's conception of them, according to which every basic durational component of the stream, each successive state of consciousness, is an integral pulse of mentality possessing a feeling aspect and a cognitive aspect. Attention is also given to their reflexive aspect, wherein one has inner awareness of their occurrence and, often, of their type and content.
Except for time-gaps, when the stream comes to a stop and then starts again, a stream of consciousness is constituted, from the Jamesian perspective, of tightly adjacent states of consciousness occurring very briefly one at a time. Unless a second such stream flows in the individual simultaneously, his or her conscious mental life at any instant consists entirely of one integral state of consciousness that typically possesses many intrinsic features.
This article was written in part as a tribute to Professor Michael Gaze, who perhaps more than most of his contemporaries, has thought and delved deeply into the question of pattern formation in the developing and regenerating nervous system. Among the contributions he has made that have had a major impact on our thinking of how ordered arrays of nerve fibers are assembled and maintained in the nervous system are the notions of “sliding connections” and fiber-fiber interactions (see Gaze et al., 1974; Meyer, 1979; Stuermer, 1991) where the position occupied by a growing nerve fiber in a retinotectal array depends not only on its relationship with its immediate neighbors, but also on what may be happening some distance away: a form of behavior that clearly has holistic overtones. Part of the aim of this essay is to explore some of the limitations of a reductionist approach to problems of pattern formation in biological systems.
Since the act of free will must affect synaptic events, where does the energy necessary to induce action potentials of cerebral neurons and synaptic webs come from? The exercise of free will requires the cerebral hardware to be flexible, i.e. it must have an indeterministic character in order to allow a free act to orient this instability in making a choice, thereby reducing the entropy of the system, but a preliminary free act which wants to expend a certain amount of energy is needed, that is, another free act should be involved anterior to, and different from, the orientation of the instability itself, and this also needs a related expenditure of energy, this in turn requiring its own free act to take place… One cannot escape the resort to the infinite. A thermodynamic machine has to dissipate the energetic equivalent of one bit of information to make a choice between two equiprobable events, whereas an immaterial agent does not, nor does it violate any physical law if it is capable of acting on a substrate within the limit of its quantum mechanical indeterminacy. A second parallel aspect in the present discussion has to do with the consequences of Godel’s theorems of incompleteness concerning mathematics and everything which is subject to logical laws. Godel has definitively proved that for any logical system there are infinite truths which are not provable, but which the human intellect sees them just as truths. Noetical algorithmic incompleteness together with the necessary separation of the notions of demonstrableness (object language) and truth (metalanguage) speaks of a dualism supporting creativity and truth and freedom. In fact, if human actions, in the absence of any involuntary impulse, should always be connected to logico-mathematical inferences, they should be always completely predictable.
Most people consider science to be the study of the objective, physical world that exists independent of our awareness of it. From this perspective, it seems impossible to develop a scientific theory of consciousness because consciousness is a subjective experience that is outside the realm of the phenomena explained by science.
It would seem that the prospects for the “scientific observer” of brain and behavior are excellent, given the extraordinary advance of twentieth-century science. Until the level of investigation descends to the quantum domain, where peculiar difficulties in observation arise (Bohm, 1951), there do not appear to be clear-cut conceptual barriers that limit the scientific observation of brain and behavior and the concomitant advance of empirical knowledge about them.
To a beginner in science back in the mid-1980s, it seemed that there could be no more challenging problem at which to aim—as a long-term, ultimate goal kind of thing—than that of consciousness and the mind-brain relation, more acceptably expressed in those days as the problem of the “neural correlates of conscious experience.” A naive beginner, of course, could hardly expect to approach a final solution, but it is always reassuring to feel that one’s efforts are at least aimed in the general direction of something that might be of ultimate importance. Meantime, as a “brain researcher,” one could find plenty of lesser but entirely respectable and more researchable corollary problems along the way, such as perception, learning, and memory.
Mechanisms that adjust the internal “parameters” of organisms to random or temporary changes in the environment can be found at every level of living organization (Plotkin and Odling-Smee 1981). At the most basic level, these mechanisms are in gene expression and in the epigenesis of the phenotype. This basic level of organization may be thought of as “genetic memory;” much animal performance involves mechanisms at that level and is based mostly or entirely on gene expression.
Das psychophysische Problem, unter anderem auch “Leib-Seele-Problem” oder “Gehirn-Bewußtsein-Problem” genannt1, ist eine der fundamentalsten philosophischen Fragen. Die Konkurrenz der verschiedensten monistischen und dualistischen/pluralistischen2 Lösungsvorschläge zum psychophysischen Problem konnte bislang, auch unter Einbeziehung und Berücksichtigung neuester naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse, insbesondere aus dem Bereich der Gehimphysiologie, nicht entschieden werden. Das psychophysische Problem muß immer noch als ungelöst betrachtet werden.3 Besonders deutlich wird der gegenwärtig kontroverse Diskussionsstand in den Beiträgen und Diskussionen der Zeitschrift (The) Behavioral and Brain Sciences oder aber in Veröffentlichungen von Vorträgen und Diskussionen von Symposien, wie z. B. dem “Symposium an Brain and Mind” der Ciba Foundation 1978. Angesichts der vielfältigen Positionen zum psychophysischen Problem, einschließlich derer, nach denen es sich bei dem psychophysischen Problem um ein Scheinproblem4 oder um ein unlösbares Problems handelt, stellen sich folgende Fragen:
The rehabilitation of cognitive disabilities involves active participation in what are often long, tedious and repetitive activities. Thus, it becomes very evident that a great deal of effort and cooperation is required of the patient. Motivation, therefore, is a very important factor in achieving successful rehabilitation (Anderson, Bourestom, & Greenberg, 1970; Fogel & Rosillo, 1969, 1971a, 1971b; Rabinowitz, 1961; Wepman, 1953). Unfortunately, this same population may also experience decreased motivation that is a direct and/or indirect consequence of their injury. (Brinkman, 1979). Wepman (1953) explains the necessity of a patient’s motivation:
...mere stimulation of a neural system which is physiologically capable of functioning is not enough, for it is evident clinically that a psychological state of readiness must also exist before maximal learning of the formation of new, operative neural integrations are possible. (p. 10)
During the predominance, in the cognitive science, of the classic symbolic-computational paradigm hardly was paid attention to the neuro-biological study of the consciousness. With the appearance of the connec-tionist models which start of a more naturalized and less abiologic conception of the psychology, was taken a radical turn in this subject. Since this current the explanation of the mental phenomenons needs to include references to the biological support because is taken like a computational model the running of the nervous system. After describing the works of the neuroscientist about the neuronal correlates on the consciousness, we analyze since a critical perspective, the limitations and the weaknesses of them refered basically to the conceptual troubles of the connectionism, to the objections to the localizacionism, to the limitations of the cerebral im-age techniques, to the lack of stablishment of the brain-mind causal rela-tions and to the exclusivist and reductionist pretension of the most part of the investigations.
It has long been recognized, that, if non-material mental events, such as the intention to carry out an action, are to have an effective action on neural events in the brain, it has to be at the most subtle and plastic level of these events. Attention has to be focussed on the biological units of the brain, the neurones or nerve cells, and on the manner of their communication at specialized sites of close contact, the synapses. An introduction to conventional synaptic theory leads on to an account of the manner of operation of the ultimate synaptic units. These units are the synaptic boutons that, when excited by an all-or-nothing nerve impulse, deliver the total contents of a single synaptic vesicle, not regularly, but probabilistically. This quantal emission of the synaptic transmitter molecules (about 5,000 to 10,000) is the ultimate functional unit of the transmission process from one neurone to another. This refined physiological analysis leads on to an account of the ultrastructure of the synapse, which gives clues as to the manner of its unitary probabilistic operation. The essential feature is that the effective structure of each synapse is a paracrystalline presynaptic vesicular grid, which acts probabilistically in quantal release.
The history of psychology in this century can be charted in terms of the issue that dominated each decade of exploration. Early studies on classical conditioning and Gestalt principles of perception were followed subsequently by two decades of behaviorism. In the 1950s information measurement took the stage to be supplanted in the 1960s by an almost frenetic endeavor to catalogue memory processes, an endeavor which culminated in the new concepts of a cognitive psychology. Currently, the study of consciousness as central to the mind-brain problem has emerged from the explorations of altered and alternative states produced by drugs, meditation, and a variety of other techniques designed to promote psychological growth.
In light of psychology's growing acceptance of the study of mental events in research, the mind-body problem has become an issue of concern. An observer's conclusions in 1980 concerning the issue and his proof of the mythological origins of consciousness are questioned. Premature conclusions in the mind-body issue can be detrimental to progress in psychological research. The emergence theory of consciousness is presented as an example of a useful approach that does not necessitate a decision concerning the mind-body problem. A practical appeal is made for cooperation among behavioral scientists toward the goal of advancing knowledge through research and eventual understanding of the relation between mind and body.
The question of the ontological status of social wholes has been formative to the development of key positions and debates within modern social theory. Intrinsic to this is the contested meaning of the concept of emergence and the idea that the collective whole is in some way more than the sum of its parts. This claim, in its contemporary form, gives exaggerated importance to a simple truism of re‐description that concerns all wholes. In this paper I argue that a better way to test the ontological status of wholes is to ask whether their causal properties can be reduced to the qualities of their parts. If reduction is possible the ontological status of emergent wholes is diminished. A close analysis of William Wimsatt's definition, conceptualisation, and characterisation of emergent phenomena provides an understanding of the relationship between wholes and their parts and suggests, also, that the properties of collective phenomena of a social kind reduce to the activities of people. Social wholes and their parts reside in the same mode (or level) of organisation. This paper concludes by employing Jaegwon Kim's method of ‘functional reduction’ to demonstrate how to reduce the qualities of wholes to those of their parts.
Ce livre plonge au coeur de l'identité, de son fonctionnement, et parcourt des thématiques psychologiques aussi bien que sociologiques, de "qui suis-je?" à "qui sommes-nous?", en passant par des questions plus inattendues telles que "pourquoi rougit-on?", "qu'est-ce qu'un sentiment profond?", ou "pourquoi nous connaissons-nous si mal?". Les deux approches, psychologique et sociologique, sont nécessaires et se complètent. "Quand on étudie le moi avec le microscope de la psychologie, on voit mal le rôle de la socialisation (qui, au moment où on étudie un individu, appartient toujours à son passé). Quand on étudie le moi avec le télescope de la sociologie, on ne s’intéresse que peu aux mécanismes psychologiques, ou, si on s’y intéresse, on les voit comme résultant du fonctionnement social". C'est donc à une étude des liens micro-macro dans l'étude de l'identité que nous convie l'auteur. Des personnages tels qu'Emily Dickinson, Romain Gary, Sartre, Dostoïevski, et d'autres, fournissent à l'auteur, des illustrations de manières d'être au monde et de se situer socialement.
Various systemic aspects of animal and human minds are explored. Formulation of a replicative evolutionary model of the mind is presented which is based upon the recognition of this entity as a component system. It can be demonstrated that interactions of neurons have replicative organization. It was concluded that intelligent activity of the animal brain manifest itself in producing and maintaining a kind of environmental model. The environmental model is a higher organization above the level of neurons, its basic functional units are called concepts. Each single concept consists of three parts: (1( cue; (2) referential‐structure; and (3) behavioral‐instructions. Interactions among the various concepts of the brain create a concept‐superstructure which behaves as a dynamic replicative component system in controlling animal and human actions. It is assumed that selection operating in the replicative process of concept making which acts as the main factor in creating ontogenetic variability of behavior. The essential process of learning is selection of concepts generated by the brain and in that way the construction of the evolutionary dynamic concept‐superstructures of the brain's environmental model.
Everyone agrees on one thing about consciousness—it possesses some sort of unity. Theorists of consciousness do not always give the same account of what this property amounts to, or of that from which they believe unity derives. In the present article, the unity of consciousness is discussed with reference to authors who have given to it some, larger or smaller, quantity of theoretical attention. Four main kinds of conscious unity emerge from the discussion, though these are not all uncontroversial. William James's treatment of one of these—called here “personal conscious unity”–is addressed in the greatest detail; but there remains a great deal more that needs to be said about all four kinds of conscious unity. The article is published in two parts.
I present a version of a nonrestricted identity theory as well as refutations of Searle's objections to the theory. The objections countered are: 1) the theory violates Leibnitz' Law and 2) that consciousness is not reducible to neurons. Searle's arguments are refuted on the basis of the first-personal nature of consciousness. It does not violate Leibnitz' law when regarded from the subjective view of the individual under observation and it appears to be irreducible because it cannot be observed from a third-person perspective. In the discussion I point out why consciousness mistakenly appears to be immaterial instead of physicochemical and I suggest a method by which consciousness might be studied empirically.
The neuroscientist Roger Sperry argues for a theory of consciousness which sees it as an emergent but not dualist entity, causally efficacious in the production of behaviour. This paper raises three issues: whether a non-metaphysical account of emergent phenomena is possible, whether consciousness or a similar emergent entity could “supervene” to be causally active in the production of behaviour, and whether consciousness conceived of as a state is to commit the fallacy of reification.
The paper proposes a model of reading that is based on the metaphorical usage of neurobiological knowledge. In the first section of the paper the basic units of the model and their organization are described, and descriptions are given for how the model functions during reading and recall, how reading skill develops, and some possible reasons for reading difficulty. The second section of the paper discusses the empirical scope of the model with focuses upon letter and word perception, theme effects in text comprehension, and the influence of text characteristics upon comprehension. The final section of the paper discusses some of the strengths and shortcomings of the model.
According to William James, bodily self-awareness (bodily feeling) is pervasive throughout the stream of consciousness; such awareness is included in each and every pulse of mentality that makes up the stream of consciousness. This installment of the present series of articles begins to consider the role that bodily self-awareness plays in the very structure of the basic durational components of James's stream. The focus here is on an account of this role that the prominent phenomenologist Aron Gurwitsch preferred. Gurwitsch held that pervasive bodily self-awareness belongs to the margin of consciousness; such bodily self-awareness occurs in the form of distinct acts of awareness possessing a separate content from that of the central thematic process which also characterizes every pulse of consciousness. The present article discusses Gurwitsch's account in order to set up a contrast, which will be drawn explicitly in the next installment, with James's more phenomeno-logically integrated conception of pervasive bodily self-awareness.
This paper explores R. W. Spew's vicw rhat consciousness is 'causally' cffcctive in directing voluntary human behaviour. This vlcw, formulated in the course of his split brain research, presupposes an earlier theory that -or bchgviour is the sole owln and rhat mental phenomena wcrc developed for regu)auon of overt response. His vicw of the 'causal' effectiveness of consciousness is shown to be bawd on a theory of emergent properties like that of Bungc. It is also shown that Spcrry, like Bunge, is a martrialist; appearances to the controry are due to occasional use of s~andard terms such as 'materialism' and 'interaction' in unusual senses. It is argued, with specific rcfercncc to Chrsholm and Scarlc, that Sperry'r hypothesis is helpful towards elucidating the structure and dynamics of action. It is also argued that it is not, as Spny thinks, a conrtqucace of hs position th.t moral values arc part of brain science. Psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry argues that consciousness is 'causally' effective in directing voluntary human behaviour. This hypothesis was developed in the course of studies of commissurotomy, or 'split brain', patients1 that issued in his Nobel prize-winning account of the specialized capacities of the cerebral hemispheres. Sperry writes that in the course of this research his concept of consciousness 'has gradually undergone a considerabie swing back in the direction of mentalism to settle on a view that is at least distinctly different from the conventional materialist approach on which most of us in behavioral research have beparays centuryv.'
Central to current cognitive theories is the belief that knowledge is an organized collection of long-term structures upon which various information processing mechanisms operate. Consequently, much research has been devoted to investigating the organizational and processing aspects of knowledge representations. A shift in the locus of theoretical analysis is proposed. Following F. C. Bartlett (1932), it is argued that mental functioning may be more readily characterized if the idea of abstract long-term associations and structures is abandoned. An account of cognition is proposed in which mental relations are transient functional relations and in which psychological permanence is a functional characteristic of the neuronal system. Cognition and other aspects of mental life are explained in terms of the activity of anatomically distributed constellations of neuronal elements. These elements are conceived of as physiological microsystems that are capable of generating specialized awareness experiences. The overall mental counterpart of the combined activity of these elements is termed the "schema of the moment." It is suggested that this model can contribute to bridging the gap between cognitive psychology and the neurosciences. (95 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Among problems psychologists of consciousness face is how to conceive of those mental states, events, or processes with which people have an intimate familiarity in their own case. Psychologists must not only determine the causal roles these occurrences play, but also their intrinsic properties. This article seeks to contribute to understanding what and how the conscious mental occurrences are in themselves, starting from W. James's conception of them, according to which every basic durational component of the stream, each successive state of consciousness, is an integral pulse of mentality possessing a feeling aspect and a cognitive aspect. Attention is also given to their reflexive aspect, wherein one has inner awareness of their occurrence and, often, of their type and content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Some basic theories relevant to the investigation of the mind-brain problem are discussed. The subject is treated from a monistic point of view. 'Mind' is a collective term for a complex of functions (especially thinking), and systems theory involving several stratified conceptual levels may help to explain how these functions emerge. 'Thinking' is described as system operations constantly matching and coordinating with conceptually complex, partly innate basic frames (value-, norm- and motivation systems, homeostatic regulation systems, behavioral programs and internally coded polymodal dynamic pictures of the surrounding world and ourselves), but also constantly altering the shapes of these frames by the process of conscious learning. Mental activity is the ultimate result of complex flow patterns of neuron activity running in extremely exact and extensive networks of neurons. These neuron systems are influenced by the very pattern of activity in the same systems, probably by activity-induced modifications of synaptic transmission. This is the biologic basis of all learning activity, memory processing, the process of image alteration and the concept of downward causation. Higher mental functions emerge as the result of dynamic functional organizations of neuron systems from many different areas of the CNS. Psychopathologic and therapeutic consequences are discussed briefly.
Attempts to clarify a hypothesis of consciousness in which the phenomena of subjective experience are conceived to exert a direct causal influence on brain activity. Response is made to some questions posed by D. Bindra (see PA, Vol. 45:Issue 3) that arose from a recent statement by Sperry of the concept. The aim is to clarify where possible with material that supplements rather than repeats previous accounts, and the hypothesis is compared with other existing theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Challenges the assumption that the subjective phenomena of conscious experiences do not exert any causal influence on the sequence of events in the physical brain process. A theory of mind is suggested in which consciousness, interpreted to be a direct emergent property of cerebral activity, is conceived to be an integral component of the brain process that functions as an essential constituent of the action and exerts a directive holistic form of control over the flow pattern of cerebral excitation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
During the past decade we have been engaged in studies in which the brain is surgically divided down the middle into right and left halves. The behavioral performances of cats and monkeys following brain bisection have led to the conclusion that each of the surgically separated hemispheres must sense, perceive, learn, and remember quite independently of the other hemisphere [Sperry, 1961a, 1961b; 1964a, 1964b].
Following prolonged training on a variety of visual discrimination problems, cats were carried through an operative procedure involving the implantation of thin mica plates throughout the visual areas of the cerebral cortex and underlying white matter. Subsequent retesting on visual discriminations showed no distortions of the type predictable from a field hypothesis of cortical function, but rather "scotomata of varying size and shape correlated with the location, size and shape of the lesions."
Apparently disparate monist and dualist views on mind and matter are held to be symmetric.
Discussion. In: Brain and Conscious Experience
- D M Mackay
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Aggregativity and complexity
- W C Wimsatt
Problems outstanding in the evolution of brain function
- R W Sperry
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Mind, brain, and humanist values In: New Views on the Nature of Man
- R W Sperry
Lateral specialization in the surgically separated hemispheres In: The Neurosciences: Third Study Program
- R W Sperry
In: New Views on the Nature of Man
- R W Sperry
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Science and the problem of values
- R W Sperry
- RW Sperry
The Phenomenon of Man
- P Teilhard De Chardin
- Teilhard