Consciousness

Consciousness, causality and complementarity

by Max Velmans

This is a clean PDF of my reply to 5 continuing commentaries in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences on my 1991 target article that in various ways expand on the original 36 commentaries and my original reply.

This reply to five continuing commentaries on my 1991 target article on “Is human information processing conscious”... more This reply to five continuing commentaries on my 1991 target article on “Is human information processing conscious” focuses on six related issues: 1) whether focal attentive processing replaces consciousness as a causal agent in third-person viewable human information processing, 2) whether consciousness can be dissociated from human information processing, 3) continuing disputes about definitions of "consciousness" and about what constitutes a “conscious process”, 4) how observer-relativity in psychology relates (and does not relate) to relativity in physics, 5) whether the first-person viewable causal efficacy of consciousness counts as ‘real’ causal efficacy and 6) a clarification of the sense in which first- and third-person causal accounts of mental processing are complementary and mutually irreducible.

Construindo um Conceito de Consciência a partir de António Damásio, Cornelius Castoriadis e Susan Carey

by José Monserrat Neto

Eyes Wide Shut: Diderot's Le Rêve de d'Alembert

by Kate Tunstall

in James Fowler, New Essays on Diderot (Cambridge, 2011)

Quo Vadis, Modern Man?

by Dario Abram

PROMOTION OF PEACE AS THE RESULT OF CULTURAL AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION IN THE AGE OF SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS.

by Oskar Vallazza

Final paper for the Graduate Certificate in the MA in Peace, Development, Security and International Conflict Transformation at the Universität Innsbruck

Survival on Earth has become a general concern for today's generation, and many people are struggling to reach a new... more Survival on Earth has become a general concern for today's generation, and many people are struggling to reach a new understanding of the world. It seems to me that the world has reached a critical point, which does not allow for easy solutions. If we are to survive in peace we have to change those habits and conceptions, which brought us to the present critical stage, and proceed on a path of paradigmatic transformation.

Accordingly, peace is not a static phenomenon but rather a continuous process of developing structures and relationships to meet our needs and strengthen our perception of well-being. To discover peace, we need to move away from a conflict-encouraging system and pursue a culture of both cultural and conflict transformation. 

The emergence and spread of an increasing number of violent, very often intractable conflicts clearly signalize that we have reached an evolutionary turning point that requires our full attention. In an unprecedented show of interdisciplinary solidarity, many scientists, scholars, social activists, aboriginal leaders and others have embarked on a search for a different level of global participation that would bring about a higher degree of consciousness.

In this paper peace will be presented as the result of a process of cultural transformation that would promote a qualitatively more balanced way of life. 

The paper will be structured around the following themes:

• A brief historical overview of the idea of peace according to the energetic/organic tradition;
• An introduction to the mechanistic world view and its effects on Western attitudes and mind;
• Applicable concepts: Noosphere, Omega Point, Bioregionalism, Spaceship Earth, the Gaia Hypothesis, Dialogue, Macroshift.
• A brief overview of General System Theory, Integral Philosophy, Self-organizing Systems.
• David Bohm’s Dialogue and Ervin Laszlo’s Macroshift
I will review issues of cultural and environmental sustainability; cultural and biological diversity; and political responsibility presented within a peaceful, dialogue-based integrated model.

Directed Evolution In Silico

by Christopher Altman

Call for papers - The Inner Revolution (16th and 17th century) [English version]

by Lo Sguardo - Rivista di Filosofia

This tenth issue of Lo Sguardo will be dedicated to the “inner revolution” of he 16th and 17th century; in particular it will delve into the matter of the interiorization of the world” and the development of an “individual interiority” in the period included betweenthe end of the Renaissance and the early modern Age. With this purpose the issue will consider the “psychology of the soul” livering over the role of the “auxialiry faculties” –such as memory, imagination, fantasy – in relation to the notion of apprehensio, to the practice of spiritual exercises and to the concept of homo faber sui.

Accepted languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German
Deadline for the delivery: September, 10th 2012

Please feel free to contact us for any further informations: redazione@losguardo.net

http://www.losguardo.net/index.html
http://www.losguardo.net/public/collabora/collabora.html

Review: Thinking About Consciousness

by Katalin Balog

Conscious-state Anti-realism

by Pete Mandik

Consciousness from a first-person perspective

by Max Velmans

This is a clean PDF of my reply to 36 peer reviews of my target article in BBS, 1991 “Is human information processing conscious?” As it develops quite a few themes that are fundamental to consciousness studies, I have added an Abstract and references so that it can be read as a stand-alone paper. As this paper tries to address all the points raised by the commentaries it ranges widely, and to assist easier reading it has been subdivided into sections that separate experimental issues from the more theoretical and philosophical issues. The commentators included many of the experimentalists and theoreticians that were prominent in consciousness studies at the time, including scientists such as Bernie Baars, Francis Crick, Christoph Koch, John Gardiner, Jeffrey Gray, Marcel Kinsbourne, Ben Libet, Dan Lloyd, George Mandler, Bruce Mangan, Norman Dixon, Howard Shevrin, Keith Stanovich, Geoff Underwood and philosophers such as Ned Block, Fred Dretske, Valery Hardcastle, Georges Rey, Aaron Sloman and Robert van Gulick. Viewed historically, it is interesting to see how confused the literature was at the time concerning how phenomenal consciousness relates to information processing and particularly to attentional processing. Viewed 20 years later, I would still make a similar defence of my original target article although many of the themes introduced in these two papers have now been elaborated in my subsequent writings.

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?”... more This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1991, pp. 651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information, and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution.

Kinds of access: Different methods for report reveal different kinds of metacognitive access

by Kristian Sandberg

Co-authored with Morten Overgaard

Validating and Calibrating First- and Second-person Methods in the Science of Consciousness

by Tom Froese

Re-Viewing from Within: A commentary on the use of first-and second-person methods in the science of consciousness

by Tom Froese

Is language necessary for consciousness? An assessment of Freud's ‘word/thing' presentation distinction

by Simon Boag

Boag, S. (2008). Is language necessary for consciousness? An assessment of Freud's ‘word/thing' presentation distinction. In S. Boag (Ed.), Personality Down Under: Perspectives from Australia (pp. 81-89). New York: Nova.

The belief that language is a necessary condition for consciousness is common within psychoanalytic literature. This,... more The belief that language is a necessary condition for consciousness is common within psychoanalytic literature. This, in turn, has led to accounts of ‘passive primal repression', where pre-verbal mental content cannot become conscious at a later time. This paper discusses consciousness and unconsciousness as certain relations rather than as qualities of mental processes. On this view, to be conscious of mental content requires taking it as the object of a second mental act. The view that language is a necessary condition for consciousness is rejected on the basis that applying language to mental content requires knowing the mental content first (i.e., being conscious of it). Implications for primal repression theory, and the manner in which language may facilitate becoming conscious awareness, are discussed.

Reflexive monism

by Max Velmans

This is a summary of some of the main features of reflexive monism published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies in 2008. Some further implications of reflexive monism considered as an integrative philosophical system are summarised in "Reflexive Monism: psychophysical relations among mind, matter, and consciousness" due to be published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies in October 2012

Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in... more Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming “out-thereness” of the phenomenal world and to how the “phenomenal world” relates to the “physical world”, the “world itself”, and processing in the brain. In order to place the theory within the context of current thought and debate, I address questions that have been raised about reflexive monism in recent commentaries and also evaluate competing accounts of the same issues offered by “transparency theory” and by “biological naturalism”. I argue that, of the competing views on offer, reflexive monism most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense.

Consciousness regained? Philosophical arguments for and against reductive physicalism

by Thomas Sturm

Published in: Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 14 (2012), 55-63.

This paper is an introductory overview of recent discussions concerning the mind-body problem, which is being... more This paper is an introductory overview of recent discussions concerning the mind-body problem, which is being addressed at the interface between philosophy and neuroscience. It focuses on phenomenal features of consciousness or “qualia,” which are distinguished from various related issues. Then follows a discussion of various influential skeptical arguments that question the possibility of reductive explanations of qualia in physicalist terms: knowledge arguments, conceivability arguments, the argument of multiple realizability, and the explanatory gap argument. None of the arguments is found to be very convincing. It does not necessarily follow that reductive physicalism is the only option, but it is defensible. However, constant conceptual and methodological reflection is required, alongside ongoing research, to keep such a view free from dogmatism and naivety.

Keywords: Consciousness, philosophy of mind, qualia, reductionism, knowledge argument, conceivability argument, multiple realization, explanatory gap, relation between philosophy and neuroscience

El instinto universal de alterar la conciencia

by José Manuel Rodríguez

Un artículo de opinión publicado en el periódico costarricense Semanario Universidad.

(forthcoming) A case study of primary process language and body boundary imagery in discourses of religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness

by Laura Cariola

Empirical Text and Cultural Research

Religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness (ASC) are assumed to share common phenomenological... more Religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness (ASC) are assumed to share common phenomenological and psychobiological features, including changes in body boundary awareness. This study aimed to assess the frequency and strength of associations between body boundary imagery and primary process language in the discourses of mystical and psychotic-mystical ASC. The mystical discourse examined here is Saint Teresa of Avila’s (1567) mystical writing "The Way of Perfection”, and the psychotic discourse is Daniel Paul Schreber’s (1903) autobiographical writing “Memoirs of My Nervous Illness”. The mystical text differs from the psychotic text in the frequency of primary process language and penetration imagery. Positive associations were also found between primary process language and penetration imagery, and barrier and penetration imagery, whereas the psychotic text yielded a positive association between barrier and penetration imagery only.

The Wings of Imagination - the missing link in the origin of consciousness?

by José Monserrat Neto

Goodbye to Reductionism

by Max Velmans

This paper is based on a plenary talk given at a conference on "Toward a Science of Consciousness: The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates" at the University of Arizona in 1996, which was followed by a public debate with the philosopher John Searle. Given the predominance of physicalist reductionism within consciousness studies at that time, the anti-reductionist approach taken in this talk and paper was quite radical. However the challenges posed to reductionism were very simple ones--which, in my view, have never been adequately addressed.

This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically characterise... more This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically characterise experience in ways which do not correspond to ordinary experience, and that to understand consciousness one must start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. Only then can one develop an understanding of how experiences viewed from a first-person perspective relate to events in the brain viewed from a third-person perspective. The paper then lists some common arguments for conscious experiences (accurately described) being nothing more than brain states along with their fallacies. It concludes that there are fundamental problems with ontological reductionism of conscious experiences to brain states that cannot be resolved.