Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2019
Michal Polák, Tomáš Marvan
29 citations
The hard problem of consciousness—explaining why and how physical processes give rise to subjective experience—may be partly an artifact of assuming that consciousness and phenomenality (the quality of subjective experience) are inseparable. Rejecting this assumption and adopting a non-unitary view, in which consciousness and phenomenality can come apart, does not eliminate the hard problem but reframes it, making the explanatory task more tractable and reducing the apparent mystery. The paper sketches additional advantages of this non-unitary account.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2018
Michal Polák, Tomáš Marvan
26 citations
A non-causal account of the relationship between consciousness and its neural correlates is preferable to a causal one, which implicitly involves an undesirable dualism of matter and mind. The identity theory, which holds that states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with their neural correlates, is favored. The paper argues that research into neural correlates of consciousness and the identity theory can enrich each other, but the identity theory requires a suitably defined concept of type, which has been neglected. A tentative hierarchical classification of phenomenal and neurophysiological types is proposed. The identity theory is compared with other mind-body conceptions, and scientists are urged to engage more with metaphysical issues.
Consciousness and cognition
November 1, 2017
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák
26 citations
Most consciousness theorists agree that a mental state cannot have a phenomenal character (what it feels like) without being conscious. This paper challenges that consensus by distinguishing two models. The unitary model treats the production of a phenomenal quality and its becoming conscious as a single process. The dual model, which the authors advocate, separates the formation of the phenomenal quality from the process that makes it conscious. They present conceptual, methodological, neuropsychological, and neural arguments that together support the dual model and the idea of unconscious mental qualities. The dual view is proposed as a hypothesis worth further investigation.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
October 6, 2025
Jakub Mihálik, Tomáš Marvan
1 citation
Neurophenomenal structuralism (NPS) is usually taken to explain why a conscious experience has a specific feel, but Sascha Fink proposes it can also explain why one has any experience at all. Fink argues that the structures determining an experience's character are embedded in larger meta-structures that make those structures conscious and add their own Gestalt phenomenology. This paper examines Fink's generalized NPS+ and raises three objections: unconscious Gestalten exist, some experiences like Ganzfeld lack Gestalt-structures, and one-factor NPS+ faces a mirroring dilemma between regress and loss of methodological promise. Two further challenges for two-factor NPS+ concern why adding structures makes features conscious and why only some neural structures are selected for consciousness.
Front Psychol
November 15, 2022
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák
This commentary critiques neurocentrist identity theory and neuro-phenomenal typing, responding to Manzotti's arguments about the boundaries and location of consciousness. It examines how identity theories define consciousness, questioning their assumptions and implications. The author argues that neurocentrist approaches, which equate consciousness with brain processes, face conceptual difficulties when accounting for the phenomenal character of experience. The commentary suggests that alternative frameworks may better address the relationship between neural activity and conscious experience.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
December 30, 2020
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák
The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) concept, as applied to conscious perceptual episodes, conflates content-related processing with the neural substrate that makes perceptual contents conscious. This paper proposes splitting the perceptual NCC into two distinct subnotions to clarify the distinction. Arguments are presented for this reconceptualization, along with its potential advantages for ongoing methodological debates in consciousness research.