Why and How. The Future of the Central Questions of Consciousness.

This review addresses two central questions about consciousness: the 'how' (neural correlates and mechanisms) and the 'why' (the hard problem of why conscious experience exists at all). The authors argue that while the hard problem will likely never fully disappear, its significance may diminish as empirical research advances. They predict that future work will be guided by a unifying brain theory—predictive coding—which must explain both perceptual consciousness and conscious mind-wandering to succeed. Such a theory could clarify the function of conscious experience, thereby reducing the weight of the hard problem.

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Abstract

In this review, we deal with two central questions of consciousness how and why, and we outline their possible future development. The question how refers to the empirical endeavor to reveal the neural correlates and mechanisms that form consciousness. On the other hand, the question why generally refers to the "hard problem" of consciousness, which claims that empirical science will always fail to provide a satisfactory answer to the question why is there conscious experience at all. Unfortunately, the hard problem of consciousness will probably never completely disappear because it will always have its most committed supporters. However, there is a good chance that its weight and importance will be highly reduced by empirically tackling consciousness in the near future. We expect that future empirical endeavor of consciousness will be based on a unifying brain theory and will answer the question as to what is the function of conscious experience, which will in turn replace the implications of the hard problem. The candidate of such a unifying brain theory is predictive coding, which will have to explain both perceptual consciousness and conscious mind-wandering in order to become the truly unifying theory of brain functioning.