Consciousness Studies

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.

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

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.

You Are Not Your Brain: Against "Teaching to the Brain"

by Gregory Nixon

Published in the *International Handbook of Academic Research and Teaching: Proceedings of Intellectbase International Consortium*, vol 22, Spring 2012, San Antonio, TX, USA, 298-306.

Since educators are always looking for ways to improve their practice, and since empirical science is now accepted in... more Since educators are always looking for ways to improve their practice, and since empirical science is now accepted in our worldview as the final arbiter of truth, it is no surprise they have been lured toward cognitive neuroscience in hopes that discovering how the brain learns will provide a nutshell explanation for student learning in general. I argue that identifying the person with the brain is scientism (not science), that the brain is not the person, and that it is the person who learns. In fact the brain only responds to the learning of embodied experience within the extra-neural network of intersubjective communications. Learning is a dynamic, cultural activity, not a neural program. Brain-based learning is unnecessary for educators and may be dangerous in that a culturally narrow ontology is taken for granted, thus restricting our creativity and imagination, and narrowing the human community.

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.

Know thyself: Metacognitive networks and measures of consciousness

by Bert Timmermans

Pasquali A and* Timmermans B and* Cleeremans A (2010). Know thyself: Metacognitive networks and measures of consciousness. Cognition, 117(2), 182-190. *equal contributions

Subjective measures of awareness rest on the assumption that conscious knowledge is knowledge that participants know... more Subjective measures of awareness rest on the assumption that conscious knowledge is knowledge that participants know they possess. Post-Decision Wagering (PDW), recently proposed as a new measure of awareness, requires participants to place a high or a low wager on their decisions. Whereas advantageous wagering indicates awareness of the knowledge on which the decisions are based, cases in which participants fail to optimize their wagers suggest performance without awareness. Here, we hypothesize that wagering and other subjective measures of awareness reflect metacognitive capacities subtended by self-developed metarepresentations that inform an agent about its own internal states. To support this idea, we present three simulations in which neural networks learn to wager on their own responses. The simulations illustrate essential properties that are required for such metarepresentations to influence PDW as a measure of awareness. Results demon strate a good fit to human data. We discuss the implications of this modeling work for our understanding of consciousness and its measures.

"Editor's Introduction: Transcending Self-Consciousness"

by Gregory Nixon

Editor's Introduction to Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research [JCER] 2(7): Focus Issue on Self-Transcending Experience: Narrative & Analysis [see in Books for the issue]

But, self-consciousness transcended (as opposed to self-dissolution, so the remembering self remains itself... more But, self-consciousness transcended (as opposed to self-dissolution, so the remembering self remains itself remembered) could have metaphysical implications: Those who have cultivated the transcending of self-consciousness in life, experiencing it over and over again and gaining a measure of control over the awakening, may well be able to retain the artifacts of selfhood – memories – as original awareness leaves the body behind, that is, in death. Just as the electricity continues after the light bulb darkens, in either case, life energy withdraws from the body but continues as unbound dynamism, but, in the latter case of self as silent witness, the memories of a lifetime may go with it, perhaps to enrich the manifold of experience in that source, which, in this way undergoes change and learning. Without those memories, able to withstand such radical decentering, the self dies with the body.

The End of Death? Conscious Life in Global Cyberspace

by Michael Purdy

Virtual life/consciousness on a chip/microprocessor, magical thinking
The motivation to preserve consciousness
the impossibility of virtual life

Perhaps putting consciousness on a chip is the last hurrah of the mental (rational) consciousness, the ultimate... more Perhaps putting consciousness on a chip is the last hurrah of the mental (rational) consciousness, the ultimate extension of instrumental rationality—the ultimate attempt to direct and be in control of life.
Do not go gentle into that good night. ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas

Qualifying Qualia Through the Skyhook Test

by Tere Vadén

"Skrbina's *Mind that Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium*"

by Gregory Nixon

Book Review: *Journal of Consciousness Studies* 16(9), Sept 2009. 116-121.

Is the great god Pan reborn? For a while there, it seemed every intellectual movement began with the prefix ‘post’,... more Is the great god Pan reborn? For a while there, it seemed every intellectual movement began with the prefix ‘post’, implying non-totality, but now there are indications that ‘pan’ (all) is returning to provide another answer to one of the most basic of ontological questions: What is the relationship of mind to matter? In this important book with 17 different authors, panpsychism is given its due.