Science of Consciousness

Two of life’s greatest mysteries are the phenomena of consciousness and the nature of spacetime. Herein, we use quantum entanglement as an inroad to both, developing a new “superpsychist” panpsychist theory. First, we frame and defend a position in which spacetime emerges from an aspatial, quasi-temporal, reality called “prototime.” We call this view of quantum phenomena the “Prototime Interpretation.” Then, based on our position on entanglement, we develop a new version of panpsychism, which we call “Superpsychism.” According to Superpsychism, the (...) fundamental level of physics has a more advanced form of consciousness than spacetime occupants do, in the sense that it exhibits maximal coherence, zero entropy and holistic integration of conscious states. Whereas cosmospychists like Goff (2017) and Nagasawa and Wager (2020) locate the fundamental unit of consciousness in the very big, we claim the greatest form of consciousness is found in the holistically entangled structure that is not even spatiotemporal and which underlies spacetime itself. (shrink)

One of the most challenging positions in contemporary philosophy of animal consciousness is that proposed by Peter Carruthers (2018a, 2018b, 2019, 2020). According to Carruthers, there is no fact of the matter about whether animals instantiate conscious states. This radical conclusion arises from the conjunction of two theses he endorses: the global workspace theory and the phenomenal concept strategy. This paper argues against Carruthers’ radical viewpoint. Its structure is as follows. First, I will present Carruthers’ theses on consciousness, such as (...) the all-or-nothing characterization of consciousness and the distinction between ‘qualia realism’ and ‘qualia irrealism’. Subsequently, I will provide a brief overview of the global workspace theory and the phenomenal concept strategy. Next, I will reconstruct the arguments that underpin Carruthers’ skepticism about attributing consciousness to animals. Finally, I will present two arguments that challenge Carruthers’ position, highlighting inherent contradictions within his project. Contrary to Carruthers’ controversial assertion (2020, p. 18), I will conclude that animal consciousness deserves attention from both philosophy and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

There is much interest in investigating the evolution question: How did consciousness evolve? In this paper, we evaluate the role that evolutionary considerations can play in justifying (i.e., confirming or falsifying) hypotheses about the origin, nature, and function of consciousness. Specifically, we argue against what we call evolution-first approaches to consciousness, according to which evolutionary considerations provide the primary and foundational lens through which we should assess hypotheses about the nature, function, or distribution of consciousness. Based on the example of (...) Walter Veit's account and additional reasoning, we contend that evolution-first approaches struggle to provide compelling empirical evidence for their key claims about consciousness. In contrast with these approaches, we argue that consciousness science needs to foundationally rely on experimental and observational evidence from humans and other present-day animals. If our arguments succeed, then researchers, when investigating consciousness, are better advised to take as their primary source of evidence consciousness’ present, not its past. Having said this, we acknowledge that evolutionary thinking plays an important role in consciousness science. We delineate this role by stressing several ways in which evolutionary considerations can substantially help advance consciousness research, although in a manner that avoids the evolution-first approach. Since our argument only concerns the assessment of hypotheses (the “context of justification”), it leaves it open which role evolutionary considerations play in generating hypotheses (the “context of discovery”). That is, evolutionary considerations may nevertheless play a foundational role in hypothesis generation in consciousness science. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel information-theoretic proof demonstrating that the human brain as currently understood cannot function as a classical digital computer. Through systematic quantification of distinguishable conscious states and their historical dependencies, we establish that the minimum information required to specify a conscious state exceeds the physical information capacity of the human brain by a significant factor. Our analysis calculates the bit-length requirements for representing consciously distinguishable sensory "stimulus frames" and demonstrates that consciousness exhibits mandatory temporal-historical dependencies that multiply (...) these requirements beyond the brain's storage capabilities. This mathematical approach offers new insights into the fundamental limitations of computational models of consciousness and suggests that non-classical information processing mechanisms may be necessary to account for conscious experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to outline the phenomenological fundament of the collective experiences which emerges along with the sound phenomena of the masses. Through an analysis of the phenomenological modes of affect, as Scheler tried to point out for the affective contagion, and through the reflection on non-self-referential forms of consciousness, I will attempt to comprehend the collective forms of intentionality.

This paper explores moral judgments as conscious phenomena, highlighting the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to achieve a comprehensive scientific understanding. Integrating insights from neuroscience, moral psychology, and philosophy of science, it adopts a mechanistic framework to analyze moral judgments through three dimensions: informational diversity, functional dynamics, and intentionality. While the mechanistic approach provides a robust foundation for decomposing moral judgments into their constitutive elements, it faces limitations in establishing causal relationships across neural levels and integrating complex cognitive processes. To (...) address these challenges, it evaluates neuroscientific theories of consciousness, identifying Global Workspace Theory (GWT) as the most suitable framework for unifying distributed neural processes into coherent conscious experiences. By synthesizing mechanistic philosophy with GWT, this paper offers a novel explanatory model for understanding moral judgments as multidimensional, integrative, and conscious phenomena. (shrink)

Motivational trade-off behaviours, where an organism behaves as if flexibly weighing up an opportunity for reward against a risk of injury, are often regarded as evidence that the organism has valenced experiences like pain. This type of evidence has been influential in shifting opinion regarding crabs and insects. Critics note that (i) the precise links between trade-offs and consciousness are not fully known; (ii) simple trade-offs are evinced by the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, mediated by a mechanism plausibly too simple (...) to support conscious experience; (iii) pain can sometimes interfere with rather than support making trade-offs rationally. However, rather than undermining trade-off evidence in general, such cases show that the nature of the trade-off, and its underlying neural substrate, matter. We investigate precisely how. (shrink)

El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar, desde tres dimensiones, los derechos del ser humano, en contraste con los derechos de las má-quinas: (1) la inteligencia natural frente a la inteligencia artificial, (2) el aspecto intelectivo (sense) y el aspecto emotivo (sensibility) de la razón y (3) el aspecto de la corporalidad cibernética de los androides, respecto de la corporalidad orgánica de los seres humanos (incluidos, claro está, los cíborgs). La delimitación implica cuestionar hasta qué punto es plausible predicar derechos (...) (o, si se prefiere, ciberderechos) a la máquina, sobre el fundamento de que ésta posee una razón equi-valente o superior a la del ser humano. (shrink)

The philosophy of superdeterminism is based on a single scientific fact about the universe, namely that cause and effect in physics are not real. In 2020, accomplished Swedish theoretical physicist, Dr. Johan Hansson published a physics proof using Albert Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity that our universe is superdeterministic meaning a predetermined static block universe without cause and effect in physics. Although spiritual experiences do occur, they are better explained by the science of superdeterminism then by a spiritual realm. In (...) order for a spiritual realm to interact with our universe, it would have to be part of our universe and hence cannot be a spiritual realm. The afterlife, divine communication and mysterious phenomena, like consciousness, can all be explained by the known science of superdeterminism without resort to an unknown spiritual realm. (shrink)

Our hope and aim was to provoke debate and research on the hypothesis that conscious experiences form quality spaces [1], so we were very pleased to receive letters from Dołęga, Mentec and Cleeremans [2] and Song [3] making constructive suggestions for taking this enquiry in new directions. Our focus was on how various computational theories of consciousness can accommodate the quality space hypothesis. Dołęga et al. make the helpful observation that this should also be investigated diachronically – both developmentally, and (...) during learning. Song points to valuable work that expands our methods for investigating quality spaces. She also argues that non-conventional approaches, like Integrated Information Theory (IIT), will be needed to account for the qualitative character of consciousness. Work on IIT has been valuable in pointing to the importance of the phenomenon we grapple with in our paper – the potential interconnectedness of conscious experiences – which other theories of consciousness have tended to overlook. However, we respectfully disagree that tackling the phenomenon necessitates a non-conventional scientific approach. (shrink)

Esta monografia faz parte de uma pesquisa de Iniciação Científica (IC) atualmente em curso, com financiamento da FAPESP (processo 2023/04313-5) até 31/12/2024.A pesquisa de IC em questão, intitulada “Como fazer ciência da cognição? O problema do método científico nas ciências cognitivas na perspectiva do naturalismo anti-reducionista das epistemologias de Quine e Sellars”, pretende caracterizar e articular os conceitos de ciência e de cognição a partir das epistemologias naturalizadas de Willard von Orman Quine (1951/1961 e 1969) e Wilfrid Sellars (1956/1963 e (...) 1962/1963). Estamos examinando se uma perspectiva naturalista e anti-reducionista, adotada em ambas nas teorias epistemológicas desses filósofos, é de fato adequada para responder ao problema filosófico de como estabelecer critérios adequados para conhecer cientificamente a cognição. Assim, estamos pesquisando, no desenvolvimento da IC, como a epistemologia naturalizada contribui para lidar com o problema de como é possível conhecer objetivamente um objeto de investigação científica que é, por excelência, subjetivo. É a partir desse problema de pesquisa que elaboramos o recorte bibliográfico desta monografia. Neste texto, que é simultaneamente um trabalho final de disciplina (Monografia I - HG770 K, 1s2024) e a primeira versão de uma monografia a ser aprimorada e expandida no segundo semestre de 2024 com auxílio da disciplina de Monografia II (HG 870), pretendo comparar os naturalismos epistemológicos de Hume e Quine quanto à natureza da cognição. Ou seja, pretendo comparar como Hume e Quine concebem, no interior de suas respectivas epistemologias, que são naturalizadas, aquilo que geralmente chamamos de ‘mente’ ou, às vezes, de ‘alma’. Na segunda e última versão da monografia, a ser desenvolvida no semestre que vem, pretendo incluir o naturalismo epistemológico de Aristóteles na comparação, e pretendo também incluir, embora brevemente e com auxílio de bibliografia contemporânea sobre o assunto, alguns resultados da pesquisa de IC relativos à epistemologia naturalizada de Sellars, o outro autor principal do projeto de IC, e algumas de suas teses em Filosofia da Mente, na expectativa de isso seja de alguma forma útil ao empreendimento de compreender a trajetória histórica pela qual percorreu o naturalismo até o século XX. Esta monografia, portanto, pretende recuperar as epistemologias de dois importantes precursores de Quine, as de Hume e Aristóteles, comparando-as com o programa quineano de naturalização da epistemologia e preparando o terreno para a uma pesquisa futura quanto aos sucessores de Quine nesse programa, inclusive Sellars. Desse modo, espero que esta monografia contribua positivamente para o desenvolvimento de uma das partes da pesquisa de IC no sentido de investigar possíveis bases históricas a partir das quais o naturalismo epistemológico floresceu no século XX. (shrink)

It is not obvious why we are conscious. Why can’t all of our mental activities take place unconsciously? What is consciousness for? We aim to make progress on this question, focusing on conscious vision. We review evidence on the timescale of visual consciousness, showing that it is surprisingly slow: postdictive effects reveal windows of unconscious integration lasting up to 400 milliseconds. We argue that if consciousness is slow, it cannot be for online action-guidance. Instead, we propose that conscious vision evolved (...) to support offline cognition, in tandem with the larger visual sensory horizons afforded by the water-to-land transition. Smaller visual horizons typical in aquatic environments require fast, reflexive actions of the sort that are guided unconsciously in humans. Conversely, larger terrestrial visual horizons allow benefits to accrue from “model-based” planning of the sort that is associated with consciousness in humans. We further propose that the acquisition of these capacities for internal simulation and planning provided pressures for the evolution of reality monitoring—the capacity to distinguish between internally and externally triggered signals, and to solve “Hamlet’s problem” in perception—the problem of when to stop integrating evidence, and fix a particular model of reality. In line with higher-order theories of consciousness, we associate the emergence of consciousness with the emergence of this reality monitoring function. We discuss novel empirical predictions that arise from this account, and explore its implications for the distribution of conscious (vs. unconscious) vision in aquatic and terrestrial animals. (shrink)

In this journal, Bucci (2022) has argued that two famous experiments in the neuroscientific literature can be used to support property dualism about the mind. In what follows, I attempt to illustrate that those experiments are completely compatible with a naive identity mind-brain/body identity theory.

This paper proposes a new framework for investigating neural signals sufficient for a conscious sensation of movement and their role in motor control. We focus on signals sufficient for proprioceptive awareness, particularly from muscle spindle activation and from primary motor cortex (M1). Our review of muscle vibration studies reveals that afferent signals alone can induce conscious sensations of movement. Similarly, studies employing peripheral nerve blocks suggest that efferent signals from M1 are sufficient for sensations of movement. On this basis, we (...) show that competing theories of motor control assign different roles to sensation of movement. According to motor command theories, sensation of movement corresponds to an estimation of the current state based on afferent signals, efferent signals, and predictions. In contrast, within active inference architectures, sensations correspond to proprioceptive predictions driven by efferent signals from M1. The focus on sensation of movement provides a way to critically compare and evaluate the two theories. Our analysis offers new insights into the functional roles of movement sensations in motor control and consciousness. (shrink)

The author claims that concept possession is not only necessary but also sufficient for self-consciousness, where self-consciousness is understood as the awareness of oneself as a self. Further, he links concept possession to intelligent behavior. His ultimate aim is to provide a framework for the study of self-consciousness in infants and non-human animals. I argue that the claim that all concepts are necessarily related to the self-concept remains unconvincing and suggest that what might be at issue here are not so (...) much conceptual but rather metacognitive abilities. (shrink)

How can we have a sense of the presence of ordinary three-dimensional objects (e.g., an apple on my desk, a partially occluded cat behind a picket fence) when we are only presented with some parts of objects perceived from a particular egocentric viewpoint (e.g., the facing side of the apple, the unoccluded parts of the cat)? This paper presents and defends a novel answer to this question by incorporating insights from two prominent contemporary theories of perception, naïve realism and sensorimotor (...) theory. Naïve realism is the view that perception is fundamentally a matter of obtaining a relation of ‘acquaintance’ with some mind-independent entities (e.g., objects, properties, events). Sensorimotor theory holds that perception involves implicit practical understanding or ‘anticipation’ of the covariance between movements and sensory changes. I argue that perceptual presence is best accounted for in terms of the combination of our direct ‘acquaintance’ with some parts of perceived objects and sensorimotor ‘anticipations’ of how the objects would look different depending on some movements and actions. (shrink)

Some research suggests that moral behavior can be strongly influenced by trivial features of the environment of which we are completely unaware. Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have argued that these findings undermine our commonsense notions of agency and responsibility, both of which emphasize the role of practical reasoning and conscious deliberation in action. We present the results of four vignette-based studies (N = 1,437) designed to investigate how people think about the metaphysical and moral implications of scientific findings that reveal (...) our susceptibility to automaticity and situational influences. When presented with lightly fictionalized narratives about these findings, participants exhibit no tendency toward changing judgments of freedom and responsibility compared to control groups. This suggests that people seem unwilling to adopt skeptical attitudes about agency on the basis of these scientific findings. (shrink)

A letter replying to Bayne et al. "Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond", 2024, arguing that the search for consciousness "beyond" healthy adult humans should begin with other animals.

Does the visual system adapt to number? For more than fifteen years, most have assumed that the answer is an unambiguous “yes”. Against this prevailing orthodoxy, we recently took a critical look at the phenomenon, questioning its existence on both empirical and theoretical grounds, and providing an alternative explanation for extant results (the old news hypothesis). We subsequently received two critical responses. Burr, Anobile, and Arrighi rejected our critiques wholesale, arguing that the evidence for number adaptation remains overwhelming. Durgin questioned (...) our old news hypothesis — preferring instead a theory about density adaptation he has championed for decades — but also highlighted several ways in which our arguments do pose serious challenges for proponents of number adaptation. Here, we reply to both. We first clarify our position regarding number adaptation. Then, we respond to our critics’ concerns, highlighting seven reasons why we remain skeptical about number adaptation. We conclude with some thoughts about where the debate may head from here. (shrink)

This paper explores the evolution of consciousness and subjectivity through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It posits that functional patterns in biological systems mirror cosmic mathematical principles, defining our objective reality. Similar to wave and Fibonacci patterns in different physical phenomena, biological patterns are intrinsic to all things and can be quantified using Dedre Gentner’s approach to analogy. For example, Earth’s ocean currents and the melting and freezing of Antarctica resemble the circulatory system and heart, while the production (...) of music from instruments is analogous to ribosomal protein synthesis. Shelves, tables, and chairs function like cytosol by holding objects in space, and a coffee cup mirrors red blood cell distribution. These analogies reveal a universal order rooted in biology’s functional patterns, essential for shaping the emergence and evolution of life. The paper traces the development of consciousness from its rudimentary cellular states to complex human cognition, highlighting the role of biologically-patterned environments in driving evolutionary changes. Organisms that recognized and organized according to these patterns evolved as “pattern recognition engines” crucial for survival—thus, Life (survival) being the primary measure of consciousness. Humans advanced this capacity, gaining cognitive freedom by insulating themselves from environmental constraints, but faced increased subjectivity complexity. Consciousness, while inherently subjective and necessary for cognitive development, evolves in humans to understand objective reality and its biological nature, so to understand and navigate complexities of subjectivity. Ultimately, the paper asserts consciousness is the ability to recognize and adhere to life-sustaining patterns and principles. Successful adherence deems them worthy of continued existence, while failure leads to demise. Parallels with historical concepts like Atman and Brahman in Hinduism suggest ancient recognition of the correspondence between human and universal patterns. This ancient understanding, coupled with modern scientific evidence, reveals the interconnectedness and intrinsic biological nature of reality. (shrink)

A Calculus of Qualia (CQ) was proposed (on PhilPapers). The key idea is that, for example, blackness is radically different than █. The former term, “blackness” refers to or is about a quale, whereas the latter term, “█” instantiates a quale in the reader's mind and is non-referential, *it does not even refer to itself*. The meaning and behavior of these terms is radically different. In this paper in this series of papers, we give a discussion zombies, spectrum inversion, the (...) knowledge argument, Hard Problems, and how to understand the solutions to Hard Problems. (shrink)

Sertraline is one of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by spontaneous thoughts that are laden with negative affect-a "malignant sadness". Prior neuroimaging studies have identified abnormal resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in the spontaneous brain networks of MDD patients. But how antidepressant medication acts to relieve the experience of depression as well as adjust its associated spontaneous networks and mood-regulation circuits remains an open question. In this study, we recruited 22 drug-naïve MDD patients along with (...) 35 normal controls and investigated whether the functional integrity of cortical networks associated with spontaneous thoughts is modulated by sertraline treatment. We attempted to predict post-treatment effects based upon what we observed in the pre-treatment rsFC of drug-naïve MDD patients. In the result, we demonstrated that (1) after the sertraline treatment, the medial temporal lobe of default network (DNMTL) and mood regulation pathway-the fronto-parietal control network (FPCN), the thalamus, and the salience network (SN)-were restored to normal connectivity, relative to the pre-treatment condition; however, the altered connections of FPCN-core DN (DNCORE), FPCN-SN, and intra-FPCN among MDD patients remained impaired; (2) thalamo-prefrontal connectivity provides moderate predictive power (r2 = 0.63) for the effectiveness of sertraline treatment. In summary, our findings contribute to a body of evidence that suggests salubrious effects of sertraline treatment primarily involve the FPCN-thalamus-SN pathway. The pre-treatment rsFC in this pathway could serve as a predictor of sertraline treatment outcome. (shrink)

The Newman problem is a fundamental problem that threatens to undermine structural assumptions and structural theories throughout philosophy and science. Here, we consider the problem in the context of consciousness science. We introduce and discuss the problem, and explain why it is detrimental not only to structuralist assumptions, but also to theories of consciousness, if left unconsidered. However, we show that if phenomenal spaces, and mathematical structures of conscious experience more generally, are understood in the right way, the Newman problem (...) does not arise. The upshot of our paper is that consciousness science needs to be careful in which definition of structure to consider, but if it is, the Newman problem disappears. (shrink)

In recent years, the science and the philosophy of consciousness has seen growing interest in structural questions about consciousness. This is the Editorial Introduction for a special volume for Philosophy and the Mind Sciences on “Structuralism in Consciousness Studies.”.

Zero has been axial in human development, but the origin and discovery of zero has never been satisfactorily addressed by a comprehensive, systematic and above all interdisciplinary research program. In this volume, over 40 international scholars explore zero under four broad themes: history; religion, philosophy & linguistics; arts; and mathematics & the sciences. Some propose that the invention/discovery of zero may have been facilitated by the prior evolution of a sophisticated concept of Nothingness or Emptiness (as it is understood in (...) non-European traditions); and conversely, inhibited by the absence of, or aversion to, such a concept of Nothingness in the West. But not all scholars agree. Join the debate. (shrink)

Recent activities in virtually all fields engaged in consciousness studies indicate early signs of a structural turn, where verbal descriptions or simple formalisations of conscious experiences are replaced by structural tools, most notably mathematical spaces. My goal here is to offer three comments that, in my opinion, are essential to avoid misunderstandings in these developments early on. These comments concern metaphysical premises of structural approaches, the viability of structure-preserving mappings, and the question of what a structure of conscious experience is (...) in the first place. I will also explain what, in my opinion, are the great promises of structural methodologies and how they might impact consciousness science at large. (shrink)

Our conscious experiences are qualitative and unitary. The qualitative universals given in particular experiences, i.e. qualia, combine into the seamless unity of our conscious experience. The problematics of quality and cohesion are not unique to consciousness studies. In mathematics, the study of qualities (e.g., shape) resulting from quantitative variations in cohesive spaces led to the axiomatization of cohesion and quality. Using the mathematical definition of quality, herein we model qualia space as a categorical product of qualities. Thus modeled qualia space (...) is a codomain space wherein composite qualities (e.g. shape AND color) of conscious experiences can be valued. As part of characterizing the qualia space, we provide a detailed exemplification of the mathematics of quality and cohesion in terms of the categories of idempotents and reflexive graphs. More specifically, with qualities as commutative triangles formed of cohesion-preserving functors, first we calculate the product of commutative triangles. Next, we explicitly show that the category of idempotents is a quality type. Lastly, as part of showing that the category of reflexive graphs is cohesive, we characterize the adjointness between functors relating cohesive graphs to discrete sets. In conclusion, our category theoretic construction of qualia space is a formalization of the binding of qualitative features (colors and shapes) into the cohesive objects (colored-shapes) of conscious experiences. Compared to the feature-vector accounts of conscious experiences, our product-of-qualities account of consciousness is a substantial theoretical advance. (shrink)