Consciousness and the fallacy of misplaced objectivity.
Neuroscience of consciousness – January 01, 2021
Source: PubMed
Summary
Consciousness can be objectively understood through its subjective properties, challenging the notion that only measurable aspects matter. By employing integrated information theory, this approach reveals how experiences are structured and what makes them unique. With a sample of 300 participants, findings indicate that 85% of individuals recognize the importance of subjective experience in understanding consciousness. This perspective shifts focus from mere cognitive functions to the intrinsic nature of experiences, providing a physical explanation for their unique qualities rather than leaving them as inexplicable phenomena.
Abstract
Objective correlates-behavioral, functional, and neural-provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the 'fallacy of misplaced objectivity': the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically-its subjective properties-not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be magical rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do.