Consciousness: some basic issues--A neurophilosophical perspective.
Consciousness and cognition June 1, 1999 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1006/ccog.1998.0376 via PubMed
Summary
Phenomenal consciousness is described through introspection and brain lesion effects, including cortical blindness, agnosia, and blindsight, along with sight recovery after cortical injury. Two perception theories—Direct Realism and the Representative Theory—are discussed, covering body-image, phantom limbs, sensation projection, phenomenal space, the homunculus argument, topographic coding, and the stimulus versus visual field. Brain-mind relationship theories—Identity Theory and Bohr-Heisenberg complementarity—are examined. Binocular rivalry from intermittent photic stimulation in animal unit recording experiments is suggested as a method for investigating the binding problem.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Binocular rivalry from stroboscopic patterns in animal experiments offers a good experimental method for investigating the binding problem. |
Abstract
This paper concentrates on the basic properties of "consciousness" that temporal coding is postulated to relate to. A description of phenomenal consciousness based on what introspection tells us about its contents is offered. This includes a consideration of the effect of various brain lesions that result in cortical blindness, apperceptive and associative agnosia, and blindsight, together with an account of the manner in which sight is regained after cortical injuries. I then discuss two therories of perception-Direct Realism and the Representative Theory. This includes a discussion of the concept of the body-image, phantom limbs, the alleged projection of sensations, the ontological status of phenomenal space, the homunculus argument, the validity of topographic coding, the difference between the stimulus field and the visual field, and two theories of brain-mind relationship-the Identity Theory and the Bohr-Heisenberg theory of brain-mind complementarity. Finally I suggest that the binocular rivalry obtained in the case of the stroboscopic patterns that result from intermittent photic stimulation of one eye, when used in animal expeiments with unit recording, offers a good experimental method of investigating the binding problem.