Locating Consciousness

Consciousness should be aligned with a single, distinct memory system rather than being a central decision-making system. It is a lower-level dynamical structure that underpins information processing. This perspective offers solutions to problems such as absent qualia, the binding problem, inverted spectra, epiphenomenalism, the explanatory gap, and the objective-subjective distinction. Drawing on psychology and neuroscience data, the work also addresses when consciousness arises and when other animals are likely conscious.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Locating Consciousness argues that our qualitative experiences should be aligned with the activity of a single and distinct memory system in our mind/brain. Spelling out in detail what we do and do not know about phenomenological experience, this book denies the common view of consciousness as a central decision-making system. Instead, consciousness is viewed as a lower level dynamical structure underpinning our information processing. This new perspective affords novel solutions to a wide range of problems: the absent qualia, the binding problem, the inverted spectra, the specter of epiphenomenalism, the explanatory gap, the distinction between objective and subjective, and the general skeptical doubts about the viability of the naturalist project itself. Drawing on recent data in psychology and neuroscience, Locating Consciousness also discusses when we become conscious and when we should think other animals are conscious. (Series A)