Science of Consciousness

One of the biggest problems in applications of animal welfare science is our ability to make comparisons between different individuals, particularly different species. Although welfare science provides methods for measuring the welfare of individual animals, there’s no established method for comparing measures between individuals. This problem occurs because of the underdetermination of the conclusions given the data, arising from two sources of variation that we cannot distinguish – variation in the underlying target variable (welfare experience) and in the relationship of (...) measured indicators to the target. In this paper I describe the similarity assumptions that underlie our current applications of interspecies comparisons and examine in which cases they are justified, as well as describing alternative methods we may use when they are not. In the end, all our available options for making interspecies comparisons are imperfect, and we need to make explicit context-specific decisions about which will be best for the task at hand while acknowledging their potential limitations. Future developments in our understanding of the biology of sentience will help strengthen our methods of making welfare comparisons. (shrink)

The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) formulated for the first time in 2004 by the neuroscientist Giulio Tononi, is a theoretical framework aiming to scientifically explain phenomenal consciousness. The IIT is presented in the first part of this work. Broadly speaking, integrated information is an abstract quantitative measure of the causal power a system has on itself. The main claim of IIT is the identity between informational structures and experience. The nature of this identity will be the subject of the second (...) part. One can interpret the IIT as a fundamental law of nature connecting the physical domain to the mental domain. The philosophical implications of such a claim are numerous and they are subject to criticism. This will be the main concern of the third and last part. (shrink)

Is it possible to build a conscious machine, an artifact that has qualitative experiences such as feeling pain, seeing the redness of a flower or enjoying the taste of coffee ? What makes such experiences conscious is their phenomenal character: it is like something to have such experiences. In contemporary philosophy of mind, the question of the qualitative aspect of conscious experiences is often addressed in terms of qualia. In a pre-theoretical and intuitive sense, qualia refer to the phenomenal character (...) or “what-it’s-like-ness” of a conscious experience: the painfulness of a pain experience or the redness of a visual experience of a red object. The problem of artificial qualia is the question of the theoretical possibility of the realization of qualia by artifacts. In this work, this problem will serve as a methodological tool to address what is arguably the most fundamental question of philosophy of mind: what exactly is consciousness? (shrink)

I start by defining sentience and giving an analysis of the epistemological problems that plague its scientific study; this consists mainly in justifying that the attribution of sentience is underdetermined by the data. Second I show that as a result of this situation of underdetermination, most of the types of arguments used to infer sentience from the data are inconclusive and lead to a stalemate. Third, I argue that the stalemates arise from a foundationalist epistemology which needlessly leads to skeptical (...) conclusions; as an alternative, I propose to adopt a coherentist framework and defend a process of ‘epistemic iteration’ (Chang 2004) within that framework, which I argue gives us a way out of the underdetermination. (shrink)

In the philosophy of mind, the causal relationship between phenomenal consciousness, mentation and brain states has always been a matter of debate. On the one hand, material monism posits consciousness and mind as pure brain-epiphenomena. One of its most stringent lines of reasoning relies on the premise that because a cerebral impairment, or its anatomical and biochemical modification, leads to a cognitive impairment and/or altered states of consciousness, there is no reason to doubt the mind-brain identity. On the other hand, (...) dualism or idealism (in one form or another) regard consciousness and mind as something other than the sole product of cerebral activity pointing at the ineffable and undefinable seemingly unphysical nature of our subjective qualitative experience and its related mental dimension. Here, we argue that the premise of material monism is based on a logical correlation-causation fallacy and will review some neuroscientific and biological findings that question the idea that posits phenomenal experience as an emergent property of brain activity. While these (mostly ignored) findings, if considered separately from each other, could, in principle, be recast into a physicalist paradigm, once viewed from an integral perspective, they substantiate equally well, if not even more effectively, an ontology that posits mind and consciousness as a primal phenomenon. (shrink)

Anil Gupta’s Conscious Experience: A Logical Inquiry provides an impressive and novel account of rational justification based on conscious experience which is used as a foundation for a new theory of empiricism. In this critical notice, I argue that Gupta’s project is fascinating, but is often hampered by a lack of sufficient philosophical justification and clarity regarding some essential features of his project, as well as a lack of engagement with relevant scientific domains that would directly bear on it, such (...) as computational neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. This limits the sort of logical inquiry available to him in problematic ways. (shrink)

Perceptual filling-in for vision is the insertion of visual properties (e.g., color, contour, luminance, or motion) into one’s visual field, when those properties have no corresponding retinal input. This paper introduces and provides preliminary empirical support for filled/non-filled pairs, pairs of images that appear identical, yet differ by amount of filling-in. It is argued that such image pairs are important to the experimental testing of theories of consciousness. We review recent experimental research and conclude that filling-in involves brain activity with (...) relatively high integrated information (Phi) compared to veridical visual perceptions. We then present filled/non-filled pairs as an empirical challenge to the integrated information theory of consciousness, which predicts that phenomenologically identical experiences depend on brain processes with identical Phi. (shrink)

The science of mind wandering has rapidly expanded over the past 20 years. During this boom, mind wandering researchers have relied on self-report methods, where participants rate whether their minds were wandering. This is not an historical quirk. Rather, we argue that self-report is indispensable for researchers who study passive phenomena like mind wandering. We consider purportedly “objective” methods that measure mind wandering with eye tracking and machine learning. These measures are validated in terms of how well they predict self-reports, (...) which means that purportedly objective measures of mind wandering retain a subjective core. Mind wandering science cannot break from the cycle of self-report. Skeptics about self-report might conclude that mind wandering science has methodological foundations of sand. We take a rather more optimistic view. We present empirical and philosophical reasons to be confident in self-reports about mind wandering. Empirically, these self-reports are remarkably consistent in their contents and behavioral and neural correlates. Philosophically, self-reports are consistent with our best theories about the function of mind wandering. We argue that this triangulation gives us reason to trust both theory and method. (shrink)

To describe computers and sophisticated robots, many people today have no problem using personal attributes. Alan Turing published his famous intelligence test in 1950. From that time onwards, computers have gained increasingly higher status in this regard. Computers and robots nowadays are not only intelligent. They perceive, they remember, they understand, they decide, they play and so on. Recently, another such step has occurred but, this time, many researchers are seriously concerned. In February 2017, the European Parliament passed a Resolution (...) to attribute legal personhood to intelligent robots. If this is accepted as law, it will have very serious consequences for our self-understanding and for the way we live together as a community. The EU Resolution has stimulated various studies, arising mainly from the area of legal studies. It is urgent that the response include also a philosophical evaluation regarding the fundamental concepts at play. This paper seeks to make a contribution precisely in this area. It explores the attribution of legal personhood to machines by focusing on what is happening at the level of meaning. It explores crucial concepts like responsibility, autonomy, person and quasi-person by drawing inspiration from the seminal works of Aristotle and L. Wittgenstein and from the ensuing debates between current philosophers like P. Hacker and D. Dennett. The results of this paper indicate what dangers could lie ahead and what could be the right way to avoid them. (shrink)

Despite their popularity, relatively scant attention has been paid to the upshot of Bayesian and predictive processing models of cognition for views of overall cognitive architecture. Many of these models are hierarchical ; they posit generative models at multiple distinct "levels," whose job is to predict the consequences of sensory input at lower levels. I articulate one possible position that could be implied by these models, namely, that there is a continuous hierarchy of perception, cognition, and action control comprising levels (...) of generative models. I argue that this view is not entailed by a general Bayesian/predictive processing outlook. Bayesian approaches are compatible with distinct formats of mental representation. Focusing on Bayesian approaches to motor control, I argue that the junctures between different types of mental representation are places where the transitivity of hierarchical prediction may be broken, and I consider the upshot of this conclusion for broader discussions of cognitive architecture. (shrink)

Affective experience in nonhuman animals is of great interest for both theoretical and practical reasons. This paper highlights research by the psychologists Anthony Dickinson and Bernard Balleine which provides particularly good evidence of conscious affective experience in rats. This evidence is compelling because it implicates a sophisticated system for goal-directed action selection, and demonstrates a contrast between apparently conscious and unconscious evaluative representations with similar content. Meanwhile, the evidence provided by some well-known studies on pain in nonhuman animals is much (...) less convincing. This comparison may offer lessons for the future study of animal consciousness. (shrink)

Peter Carruthers has recently argued for a surprising conditional: if a global workspace theory of phenomenal consciousness is both correct and fully reductive, then there are no substantive facts to discover about phenomenal consciousness in nonhuman animals. I present two problems for this conditional. First, it rests on an odd double-standard about the ordinary concept of phenomenal consciousness: its intuitive non-gradability is taken to be unchallengeable by future scientific developments, whereas its intuitive determinacy is predicted to fall by the wayside. (...) Second, it relies on dismissing, prematurely, the live empirical possibility that phenomenal consciousness may be linked to a core global broadcast mechanism that is shared by a wide range of animals. Future developments in the science of consciousness may lead us to reconsider the non-gradability of phenomenal consciousness, but they are unlikely to lead us to accept that there are no facts to discover outside the paradigm case of a healthy adult human. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained is probably the most widely read book about consciousness ever written by a philosopher. Despite this, the book has had a surprisingly small influence on how most philosophers of mind view consciousness. This might be because many philosophers badly misunderstand the book. They claim it does not even attempt to explain consciousness, but instead denies its very existence. Outside of philosophy the book has had more influence, but is saddled by the same misunderstanding. Now, 30 years (...) after publication, Consciousness Explained deserves reconsideration from anyone interested in consciousness. Here I make a case for this. To start, I will clear up the central misunderstanding of the book. With that done, I will explain and update Dennett’s tantalizing approach to consciousness and the mind. The result brings us very, very close to explaining consciousness. Or so I will argue. (shrink)

In his book “Galileo’s Error”, Philip Goff lays out what he calls “foundations for a new science of consciousness”, which are decidedly anti-physicalist (panpsychist), motivated by a critique of Galileo’s distinction into knowable objective and unknowable subjective properties and Arthur Eddington’s argument for the limitation of purely structural (physical) knowledge. Here we outline an alternative theory, premised on the Interface Theory of Perception, that too subscribes to a “post-Galilean” research programme. However, interface theorists disagree along several lines. 1. They note (...) that Galileo’s distinction should be replaced by a truly non-dual account, referring to a difference of degree only. 2. They highly appreciate the role of mathematics, in particular when it comes to actually engage scientifically with consciousness. Some notable features of the interface theory are its skepticism towards our epistemic capacities and its rejection of the existence of a public, mind-independent reality. In addition, some interface theorists further employ a thin concept of “conscious agency” to ground their theory. The interface theory leaves open many of the problems of consciousness science (e.g. what is a “self”?) as questions for further (scientific, mathematical) research. (shrink)

I was a little apprehensive about reviewing this book because I know little about engineering or the inner workings of the computer, but in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to know more about Federico Faggin. Twenty years ago, returning from an afternoon trip during the SSE conference in San Diego, I sat next to him on the bus and mentioned that since we last met I had lost the vision in my right eye, which I was still adjusting (...) to physically and emotionally. He volunteered that he had lost the vision in his left eye when he was a youth in Italy and lightly commented that depth perception, which concerned me, was only an issue for six or seven feet. His admission and attitude were not only a revelation, but an inspiration for me: If this eminent gentleman had made world-changing inventions, was a successful businessman and had a happy social and family life despite monocular vision; I certainly could get on successfully with my life as well. Silicon is the fascinating story of Federico Faggin’s remarkable life, but it is also his personal journey from scientific materialism to an awakening to a deeper level of consciousness. He divides his narrative into his four “lives.” His first life took place in his native northern Italy where he was a brilliant student with a wide range of interests. He became interested in computers and transistors, which had been recently invented and read all he could independently, since it was not taught in his school. His fascination deepened and he got a job with Olivetti where he learned much more than he could have at school and which become pivotal to his subsequent career. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness has been a perennially vexing issue for the study of consciousness, particularly in giving a scientific and naturalized account of phenomenal experience. At the heart of the hard problem is an often-overlooked argument, which is at the core of the hard problem, and that is the structure and dynamics (S&D) argument. In this essay, I will argue that we have good reason to suspect that the S&D argument given by David Chalmers rests on a limited (...) conception of S&D properties, what in this essay I’m calling extrinsic structure and dynamics. I argue that if we take recent insights from the complexity sciences and from recent developments in Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness, that we get a more nuanced picture of S&D, specifically, a class of properties I’m calling intrinsic structure and dynamics. This I think opens the door to a broader class of properties with which we might naturally and scientifically explain phenomenal experience, as well as the relationship between syntactic, semantic, and intrinsic notions of information. I argue that Chalmers’ characterization of structure and dynamics in his S&D argument paints them with too broad a brush and fails to account for important nuances, especially when considering accounting for a system’s intrinsic properties. Ultimately, my hope is to vindicate a certain species of explanation from the S&D argument, and by extension dissolve the hard problem of consciousness at its core, by showing that not all structure and dynamics are equal. (shrink)

The question of what happens when we die may just be the most intriguing of them all. Unfortunately, I am not a ghost, and could not tell you what definitely occurs when we sink our lungs in and close our eyes for the last time. However, one can speculate. If the theories of reincarnation, Heaven and Hell, or void of nothingness fail to convince you, surely there are more possibilities to contemplate - especially ones that focus on experiencing the afterlife (...) through your consciousness. (shrink)

Brief review of Mark Solms' "The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness".

This carefully designed, multi-authored textbook covers a broad range of theoretical issues in cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience. With accessible language, a uniform structure, and many pedagogical features, Mind, Cognition, and Neuroscience: A Philosophical Introduction is the best high-level overview of this area for an interdisciplinary readership of students. Written specifically for this volume by experts in their fields who are also experienced teachers, the book’s thirty chapters are organized into the following parts: I. Background Knowledge, II. Classical Debates, III. (...) Consciousness, IV. Crossing Boundaries. -/- Each chapter starts with relevant key words and definitions and a chapter overview, then presents historical coverage of the topic, explains and analyzes contemporary debates, and ends with a sketch of cutting edge research. A list of suggested readings and helpful discussion topics conclude each chapter. This uniform, student-friendly design makes it possible to teach a cohort of both philosophy and interdisciplinary students without assuming prior understanding of philosophical concepts, cognitive science, or neuroscience. -/- Key Features: -/- Synthesizes the now decades-long explosion of scientifically informed philosophical research in the study of mind. Expands on the offerings of other textbooks by including chapters on language, concepts and non-conceptual content, and animal cognition. Offers the same structure in each chapter, moving the reader through an overview, historical coverage, contemporary debates, and finally cutting-edge research. Packed with pedagogical features, like defined Key Terms, Suggested Readings, and Discussion Questions for each chapter, as well as a General Glossary. Provides readers with clear, chapter-long introductions to Cognitive Neuroscience, Molecular and Cellular Cognition, Experimental Methods in Cognitive Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Metaphysical Issues, and Epistemic Issues. (shrink)

First-person reports of Major Depressive Disorder reveal that when an individual becomes depressed a profound change or ‘shift’ to one’s conscious experience occurs. The depressed person reports that something fundamental to their experience has been disturbed or shifted; a change associated with the common but elusive claim that when depressed one finds oneself in a ‘different world’ detached from reality and other people. Existing attempts to utilise these phenomenological observations in a psychiatric context are challenged by the fact that this (...) experiential ‘shift’ characteristic of depression appears mysterious and resists analysis in scientific terms. This paper offers a way out of this predicament. The hypothesis proposed is that when an individual becomes depressed, the individual departs from a state of ordinary wakeful consciousness and enters a distinctive global state of consciousness akin to dreaming and the psychedelic state. After unpacking and motivating this hypothesis in the context of research in consciousness science, I outline two of its important implications for the neurobiology of depression and psychedelic psychiatry. The upshot is a promising and conceptually well-motivated hypothesis about depression which is apt for empirical uptake and development. (shrink)

Traditional models of skill learning posit that skilled action unfolds in an automatic manner and that control will prove deleterious to movement and performance proficiency. These perspectives assume that automated processes are characterised by low levels of control and vice versa. By contrast, a number of authors have recently put forward hybrid theories of skilled action which have sought to capture the close integration between fine-grained automatic motor routines and intentional states. Drawing heavily on the work of Bebko et al. (...) and Christensen et al., we argue that controlled and automated processes must operate in parallel if skilled performers are to address the wide range of challenges that they are faced with in training and competition. More specifically, we show how skilled performers use controlled processes to update and improve motor execution in training contexts and to stabilise performance under pressurised conditions. (shrink)

Identifying the physiological processes in the central nervous system that underlie our conscious experiences has been at the forefront of cognitive neuroscience. While the principles of classical physics were long found to be unaccommodating for a causally effective consciousness, the inherent indeterminism of quantum physics, together with its characteristic dichotomy between quantum states and quantum observables, provides a fertile ground for the physical modeling of consciousness. Here, we utilize the Schrödinger equation, together with the Planck-Einstein relation between energy and frequency, (...) in order to determine the appropriate quantum dynamical timescale of conscious processes. Furthermore, with the help of a simple two-qubit toy model we illustrate the importance of non-zero interaction Hamiltonian for the generation of quantum entanglement and manifestation of observable correlations between different measurement outcomes. Employing a quantitative measure of entanglement based on Schmidt decomposition, we show that quantum evolution governed only by internal Hamiltonians for the individual quantum subsystems preserves quantum coherence of separable initial quantum states, but eliminates the possibility of any interaction and quantum entanglement. The presence of non-zero interaction Hamiltonian, however, allows for decoherence of the individual quantum subsystems along with their mutual interaction and quantum entanglement. The presented results show that quantum coherence of individual subsystems cannot be used for cognitive binding because it is a physical mechanism that leads to separability and non-interaction. In contrast, quantum interactions with their associated decoherence of individual subsystems are instrumental for dynamical changes in the quantum entanglement of the composite quantum state vector and manifested correlations of different observable outcomes. Thus, fast decoherence timescales could assist cognitive binding through quantum entanglement across extensive neural networks in the brain cortex. (shrink)

Identifying the physiological processes in the central nervous system that underlie our conscious experiences has been at the forefront of cognitive neuroscience. While the principles of classical physics were long found to be unaccommodating for a causally effective consciousness, the inherent indeterminism of quantum physics, together with its characteristic dichotomy between quantum states and quantum observables, provides a fertile ground for the physical modeling of consciousness. Here, we utilize the Schrödinger equation, together with the Planck-Einstein relation between energy and frequency, (...) in order to determine the appropriate quantum dynamical timescale of conscious processes. Furthermore, with the help of a simple two-qubit toy model we illustrate the importance of non-zero interaction Hamiltonian for the generation of quantum entanglement and manifestation of observable correlations between different measurement outcomes. Employing a quantitative measure of entanglement based on Schmidt decomposition, we show that quantum evolution governed only by internal Hamiltonians for the individual quantum subsystems preserves quantum coherence of separable initial quantum states, but eliminates the possibility of any interaction and quantum entanglement. The presence of non-zero interaction Hamiltonian, however, allows for decoherence of the individual quantum subsystems along with their mutual interaction and quantum entanglement. The presented results show that quantum coherence of individual subsystems cannot be used for cognitive binding because it is a physical mechanism that leads to separability and non-interaction. In contrast, quantum interactions with their associated decoherence of individual subsystems are instrumental for dynamical changes in the quantum entanglement of the composite quantum state vector and manifested correlations of different observable outcomes. Thus, fast decoherence timescales could assist cognitive binding through quantum entanglement across extensive neural networks in the brain cortex. (shrink)

In passing remarks, some commentators have noted that for Nagel, physicalism is true. It has even been argued that Nagel seeks to find the best path to follow to achieve future physicalism. I advance these observations by adding that for Nagel, we should discuss the consciousness problem not in terms of physical and mental issues but in terms of our desire to include consciousness in an objective/scientific account, and we can achieve this only by revising our self-conception, i.e., folk psychology, (...) to develop a more detached view of experience. Through the project of objective phenomenology, Nagel aims to achieve some sort of objective, detached, and scientific explanation of the subjective nature of experience. This project seeks to make the truth of physicalism intelligible and consciousness more amenable to scientific study, potentially raising an even broader concept than the one physicalism originally proposes. (shrink)

Despite the promise to boost human potential and wellbeing, enhancement drugs face recurring ethical scrutiny. The present studies examined attitudes toward cognitive enhancement in order to learn more about these ethical concerns, who has them, and the circumstances in which they arise. Fairness-based concerns underlay opposition to competitive use—even though enhancement drugs were described as legal, accessible and affordable. Moral values also influenced how subsequent rewards were causally explained: Opposition to competitive use reduced the causal contribution of the enhanced winner’s (...) skill, particularly among fairness-minded individuals. In a follow-up study, we asked: Would the normalization of enhancement practices alleviate concerns about their unfairness? Indeed, proliferation of competitive cognitive enhancement eradicated fairness-based concerns, and boosted the perceived causal role of the winner’s skill. In contrast, purity-based concerns emerged in both recreational and competitive contexts, and were not assuaged by normalization. (shrink)

The discussion of the nature of consciousness seems to have stalled, with the “hard problem of consciousness” in its center, well-defined camps of realists and eliminativists at two opposing poles, and little to none room for agreement between. Recent attempts to move this debate forward by shifting them to a meta-level have heavily relied on the notion of “intuition”, understood in a rather liberal way. Against this backdrop, the goal of this paper is twofold. First, we want to highlight how (...) the ontological and epistemological status of intuitions restricts the arguments in the debate on consciousness that rely on them. Second, we want to demonstrate how the deadlock in those debates could be resolved through a study of a particular, “positive” kind of intuitions. We call this approach “The Canberrish Plan for Consciousness” as it adopts elements of the methodological “Canberra Plan”. (shrink)

Abstract to Equations, Qualia, and Qualations -/- With regard to consciousness, we could write an equation B = black. But it is possible to rewrite this using a quale, namely, B = █. This latter equation might be called a ‘qualation’. It has the same meaning regardless of the physiology that apprehends it. This article argues a whole theory of qualations could be developed. Further, to a Dualist, it could be that a materialist is convinced by materialist arguments involving the (...) first equation, but it is unimaginable how this could ever be for a qualation. In view of the strong association of qualia with McTaggart’s A-series (future/present/past) a few notes on time are included. (shrink)

This paper explores the problematic issue of the theoretical dominance of neuroscience in the discipline of consciousness studies and tries to explain why such a dominance must not be encouraged through the philosophical and logical divulgement of the methodological shortcomings of neuroscience in explaining consciousness. Besides this, the paper also reminds us of the utmost and exclusive importance of 'consciousness' in consciousness studies and rivets our attention to the immense importance of adopting a multidisciplinary ecumenic approach towards understanding consciousness.

It is proposed that a human conscious experience of the sort we report to each other reflects a direct causal interaction between a pattern of information about the world, encoded in a field of postsynaptic potentials, and a quantized mode of excitation occupying dendritic cytoskeleton. The requirement for a quantized account is seen simply as the need for an event of experience to be a single indivisible, but richly patterned, causal relation between information and an 'informee'. It is argued that (...) the informee is likely to be a higher-order quantized collective mode (much as proposed by Craddock and colleagues, 2017) with the biologically relevant dynamics likely also to be describable in classical terms. No specific interpretation of quantum theory is needed. In this scenario, anaesthetics would abrogate reportable experience by detuning parameters underpinning cytoskeletal informee modes, perhaps critically increasing associated impedence. It is also proposed that tuning and detuning of informee modes in individual dendritic trees by binding of accessory proteins to cytoskeleton plays a physiological role in short-term memory and truth evaluation through ascertainment of sequential signal pattern consonance. Components of this model may be involved in cellular adaptive responses in many types of organism. (shrink)

Doerig et al. have set several criteria that theories of consciousness need to fulfill. By these criteria, higher-order theories fare better than most existing theories. But they also argue that higher-order theories may not be able to answer both the ‘small network argument’ and the ‘other systems argument’. In response, we focus on the case of the Perceptual Reality Monitoring theory to explain why higher-order theories do just fine.