Advances in Consciousness Research
November 29, 2000
46 citations
Investigating phenomenal consciousness requires a precise understanding of its phenomena and general truths about its nature, which can be achieved through first-person, second-person, and third-person methods. This book introduces creative applications of these methods to explore the relationship between consciousness and the brain, examine or change consciousness itself, and understand how social, clinical, and therapeutic contexts influence it. It also provides maps of the consciousness studies field to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches and demonstrate the interplay between methodology and epistemology, placing diverse methods into an interdisciplinary context.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Berit Brogaard
20 citations
A philosophical examination argues that phenomenal consciousness may involve an ontological gap—a fundamental difference from physical reality—without an explanatory gap, meaning science could still explain it. This challenges both the view that science cannot explain consciousness (explanatory gap) and the view that an explanatory gap implies an ontological gap (property dualism). The paper explores this fourth logical possibility, suggesting consciousness might be physically explained yet ontologically distinct.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
14 citations
The nature of phenomenal consciousness and its relation to brain activity remains debated. This volume brings together scientists and philosophers to discuss whether specific neural activities constitute consciousness or merely correlate with it, examining phenomena such as binocular rivalry, attention, memory, affect, pain, dreams, and coma. It explores the appropriate level of neural activity for constituting consciousness, what the science of consciousness should aim to explain, and whether relations such as identity, supervenience, realization, emergence, or causation better capture the brain-mind connection. Building on earlier work on visual consciousness, this collection addresses empirical and conceptual questions in this interdisciplinary field.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Jeroen J.a. Van Boxtel, Naotsugu Tsuchiya
11 citations
A chapter examines confounds that must be controlled when studying the neural basis of phenomenal conscious perception. It reviews psychological and neural studies that dissociate attention, report, and memory from phenomenal consciousness, discussing phenomena such as aftereffects, change blindness, inattentional blindness, and brain-imaging results whose implications for consciousness theory may be contaminated by these factors. The chapter also considers whether report and memory are necessary or sufficient for phenomenal consciousness.
Advances in Consciousness Research
April 12, 2001
Evan Harris Walker
4 citations
Consciousness arises from quantum mechanical processes in the brain, specifically from tunneling and state vector collapse driven by the brain's comparison loops, as described by a modified Schrödinger equation (MSE). This quantum view of consciousness can resolve longstanding problems in neurophysiology and physics, including the conflict between general relativity and quantum theory. The theory also offers a solution to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and yields testable experimental predictions.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Zoe Drayson
3 citations
Consciousness research advances, but the 'phenomenal' aspect—the first-person, subjective feel of experience—remains hard to explain. This aspect appears private and knowable in a special way, clashing with science's objective, third-person methods. The introduction surveys phenomenal consciousness, philosophical arguments about its nature, and whether an explanation for its properties should be expected.
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Roberto Palaia
3 citations
In 17th- and 18th-century European languages, the word 'consciousness' underwent a semantic shift. Previously tied to theology and ethics, it acquired a new meaning in early modern thought, referring to knowledge of the self. Phrases like 'freedom of consciousness' and 'casus conscientiae' became more frequent in political, religious, scientific, and philosophical texts. This analysis examines these semantic fields in key philosophical and scientific works, focusing on their specific uses and contexts.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Jonathan P. Opie, Gerard J. O’brien
2 citations
Philosophers now largely reject reductionism to microphysics in favor of functional explanations for the special sciences, but a closer look at scientific practice shows that the actual explanatory strategy is mechanistic: appealing to active material entities organized to produce target phenomena. The authors argue that phenomenal consciousness will also be explained mechanistically, as the activity of specific neural mechanisms in the brain. This perspective implies that consciousness has a complex structural essence, which the chapter explores.
Advances in Consciousness Research
July 11, 2012
Rick Dale, Deborah P. Tollefsen, Christopher T. Kello
2 citations
Conscious experience and selfhood depend on many mechanisms operating at different levels of space, time, and complexity. These include the global workspace for conscious information, the role of action in self-awareness, and social and narrative influences. The authors argue that phenomenal experience likely relies on all these levels simultaneously. They propose two challenges: investigating the sustained dynamics of phenomenal experience and understanding how multi-scale cognitive processes interact to produce its richness. They do not aim to solve the hard problem of consciousness but contend that any solution must account for this pluralistic nature.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Derk Pereboom
A physicalist account of the mind is developed, responding to arguments that conscious experience seems to resist physical explanation. The author first answers the knowledge and conceivability arguments by suggesting introspection might misrepresent phenomenal states as having qualities they lack. An alternative Russellian monist view is then proposed, where unknown intrinsic physical properties ground known microphysical properties and also explain phenomenal consciousness. Finally, a nonreductive physicalism is defended, where the mental is materially constituted by the microphysical rather than identical to it.
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Monica Riccio
Modern philosophy transformed the concept of sensation from a bodily, surface-level experience into an interior, mental event. The paper argues that sensation, rooted in the passive experience of "being touched," forces a passage from the external body into the inner depths of consciousness, modifying the mind and soul. Focusing on Malebranche and Condillac, it shows how both thinkers, despite differing arguments—Malebranche reworking Cartesian dualism and Condillac following Lockean anti-innatism—recognized the fundamental passivity of the sentient subject. Sensation's pervasive power helped generate a new, expanded representation of the inner space of consciousness, shifting focus from the body's surface to the mind's interior.
Advances in Consciousness Research
April 12, 2001
Philip Van Loocke
A framework is proposed in which systems are shaped by both forces acting from the past and selection procedures acting from the future. Forces determine a set of possible states, and selection, guided by a criterion not reducible to those forces, picks the actual state. This teleological insertion improves performance in cognitive and generative art examples. It is conjectured that, given the universe's complexity, selection can operate systematically without violating physical laws. The relation between selection and the philosophy of consciousness is discussed.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Jaan Aru, Talis Bachmann, Wolf Singer et al.
Identifying the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is considered a key step toward understanding consciousness. Typical experiments contrast conditions with and without conscious perception, but this contrast captures not only neural activity directly tied to conscious experience but also prerequisites and consequences of that perception. To isolate the true neural basis of conscious experience, researchers must disentangle the NCC from these confounding processes. This review discusses recent experimental developments and proposes new empirical approaches to more precisely isolate the neural activity underlying conscious perception.
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 17, 2015
Tom A. De Graaf, Alexander T. Sack
Neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) include three distinct components: neural substrates that directly represent conscious experience, neural prerequisites that must occur before an experience, and neural consequences that follow it. In standard correlative studies, these three types are indistinguishable. A multi-pronged research approach could help separate them. The authors integrate their ideas with other recent work on NCC components and propose strategies to address the empirical-epistemological challenges posed by the problem of three NCCs. They conclude that while the problem is important and difficult, it is not destructive, and the NCC research program still has much to contribute.
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Geri Cerchiai
Against Descartes' rationalism, Vico argues that the clear and distinct idea cannot serve as a criterion of truth for the cogito, because it mistakenly substitutes God's understanding (intelligere) for human thinking (cogitare). Descartes' method of doubt also ignores the essential link between mind and body in humans, and rests on a flawed notion of substance. The article examines these four criticisms and explores what theory of consciousness might be implied by Vico's alternative reflections.
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Adrian Alsmith
This philosophical paper examines the reasons for endorsing the idea of pre-reflective bodily self-consciousness (PBS). It asks why one should think that any description of consciousness positing PBS is correct. The discussion aims to show how difficult this question is to answer and the kinds of considerations that should be brought to bear in attempting to answer it.
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Bryony Pierce
Conscious experience, rather than being a step beyond psychological functions like beliefs and desires, should be situated at the interface between the physical body and cognitive processes. The author argues that the function of consciousness is to act as an interface, providing a means of interaction between bodily states and affordances in the external world, enabling rational, goal-directed action. This view is supported by empirical work in experimental psychology by Balleine and Dickinson (1998) and by the author's own philosophical work on grounding rationality, which together support Dickinson's Hedonic Interface Theory (HIT).
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Consciousness emerges from and influences our skilled interactions with the natural and social world. The collection examines how phenomenal consciousness and subjective selfhood are grounded in natural and social interactions, and what role brain activity plays. It analyzes how interactions with objects and people shape self-understanding, and how consciousness alters social interaction, self-control, and emotions. Historical chapters trace the roots of the contemporary notion of consciousness in early modern philosophy. The book offers interdisciplinary insight on key topics in consciousness research.
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 31, 2011
Arthur Melnick
Consciousness is not merely a product of brain activity, as most philosophers and scientists believe, but a phenomenon that exists throughout the body. The book argues that consciousness is fundamentally self-disclosing, revealing itself to the conscious being, regardless of intentionality or self-awareness. By focusing on this self-disclosing character, the work proposes a specific account of consciousness as a bodily field phenomenon, aiming to break the philosophical stalemate over its physical reality.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Timothy J. Crow
The human brain's torque—the twisting asymmetry that creates four distinct chambers of association cortex compared to the two chambers in other mammals—is the feature that enables language by separating thought from speech production in the frontal lobes and meaning from speech perception in the occipito-parieto-temporal cortex. Psychotic symptoms such as hearing voices, experiencing thoughts as not one's own, and incoherent speech can be understood as leakage between these four quadrants. Consciousness is a byproduct of this arrangement, and schizophrenia is the price humans pay for language.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Michael E. Hasselmo
Consciousness is described as a perception of self constructed to guide voluntary, goal-directed behavior, involving neural mechanisms for mental time travel into the future during planning and into the past during episodic retrieval. This neural time travel relies on distributed cortical perceptual processes that detect the state of the self across multiple dimensions, including spatial location, head direction, speed, temporal duration, and egocentric relationships to items. These circuit mechanisms are regulated by neuromodulatory influences, such as muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, which activate intrinsic properties of neurons involved in maintaining an internal representation of self.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Fiona E.N. LeBeau
Synchronized neuronal activity in the gamma frequency range (~30–100 Hz) may contribute to conscious perception. This chapter reviews mechanisms underlying gamma frequency generation and changes observed in schizophrenia. Recent optogenetic techniques, which genetically modify cells to respond to specific light wavelengths, now enable direct testing of how different neuronal classes contribute to network oscillations and potentially to consciousness.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Bangalore N. Gangadhar, Naren P. Rao
Consciousness can be altered willfully through various methods, including psychological means. While some induced states are pathological, many are not. Indian and other Eastern concepts emphasize that individuals can induce "higher states of consciousness" themselves. Physiological changes observed in these altered states point to a neural basis.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
William Sedley
Auditory consciousness encompasses familiar experiences like hearing and imagining sounds, as well as rarer ones like tinnitus and hearing voices. This chapter presents a simplified model of the auditory system that distinguishes bottom-up signals from lower pathways and top-down influences from higher evaluative mechanisms. Using this model, auditory perception, hallucinations, and illusions are explained as minor variations from normal functioning. Neuroimaging and electrophysiological correlates are discussed, highlighting their current inability to qualitatively differentiate conscious from unconscious auditory processes, and suggesting future approaches to address this limitation.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Allan Hobson, Ursula Voss
Consciousness in primates and humans has at least two expressions that depend on the state of the organism: waking and dreaming. In waking, consciousness allows volition and reflection (secondary consciousness), whereas dreaming is a state of primary consciousness characterized by delusional thoughts, though both states involve perception and emotion. Lucid dreaming is a rare, real condition that combines elements of both waking and dreaming, involving primary and secondary consciousness, and offers a promising tool for studying the neural basis of consciousness.