The brain
Francesco E. Marino in Human Fatigue, 2019
As already discussed in Chapter 1 and in more detail in Chapter 4, fatigue is defined in many ways depending on its relevance to the performance or health status of an individual or group. A curious aspect of human fatigue is that we know little about the way the “sensation” we describe as fatigue is generated regardless of health status. One of the lurking problems in this field of study is what we believe “consciousness” to be. This particular idea has been debated and written about for millennia by both philosophers and scientists. To expand on the meandering history of this debate would take several volumes and its own textbook to do it justice. However, the purpose here is not the debate between philosophy and science; rather it is to arrive at a workable definition of consciousness so that we can begin to understand how the sensation of fatigue is either generated or at least interpreted by the brain. From a practical perspective, “‘consciousness’ refers to those states of sentience or awareness that typically begin when we wake from a dreamless sleep and continue through the day until we fall asleep again, die, go into a coma or otherwise become ‘unconscious’” (Searle 1998, p. 1936). There are many levels to this definition, but the crucial aspect that should be considered is that consciousness and attention are not necessarily the same thing since any one of us can be conscious of a host of things around us but paying very little attention to them (Searle 1998).
An Epilogue: Blade Runner or Einstein?
Max R. Bennett in The Idea of Consciousness, 2020
The first purpose of this book has been to present the contributions which neuroscience has recently made to our understanding of where the different contents of consciousness arise in the brain. The second has been to see how the workings of the synaptic connections in the brain might give rise to these contents. Arguments have been put forward that the concepts and techniques which neuroscience now has available offer the opportunity to identify and explore those parts of the brain which generate the different contents of consciousness. This might be possible not only for our own species, but for others as well. Such a neuroscience of consciousness will provide insights into the origins of this phenomenon. Perhaps more importantly, it will give us the means of ameliorating those distortions of consciousness which arise in psychotic conditions that are responsible for so much mental suffering in the world.
A short walk around the subject
Derek Steinberg in Consciousness Reconnected, 2018
To approach even the beginnings of what consciousness may be, we do need neuroscience and philosophy, but we also need to take account of: that which actually completes our conscious minds – our experience of the world outside: the contents of consciousness. I will argue that these don’t ‘fill’ consciousness; they make and shape it, set its boundariestheories of the unconscious mind and the external influences of social psychologythat which the mind does – the whole of its creativity and innovation: in the broadest sense, for good or ill, its productivity of ideas, arts and artefacts.
Neuroethical Consciousness
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2020
Another potentially helpful way of thinking about consciousness research and the BRAIN Initiative is to distinguish between State consciousness and Creature consciousness. In discussions of consciousness in neuroethics and bioethics it is generally the case that we are talking about the consciousness of creatures—living human or non-human animals who are subjects of consciousness. For example, it is common to maintain that consciousness is a necessary condition of person hood and personal identity. Although there are examples of neuroscientific research and neuroethical discussion that relate directly to the matter of creature consciousness, for instance, the minimally conscious state (MCS) and the moral status of brain organoids, the focus of much research is on state consciousness and the investigation of what it means for a state to be conscious, as opposed to unconscious. For instance, a person may suddenly become aware that the phone is ringing. Here an important question to ask, is “What is the difference in neural terms between the pre-conscious and the conscious state?”
Re-Theorizing ‘Potential’ to Assess Nonhumans' Moral Significance: Humans' Duties to [Created] Sentient Beings
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2018
Outside clinical contexts, the measures and moral salience of consciousness cannot be taken as read. Philosophers deploy a plethora of definitions, constituents, and subtypes of consciousness, engaging in ongoing debates over what these may be, on how they relate to terms like personhood denoting moral significance, and on the moral consequences which should flow from them (Shepherd 2017). Without an accepted coherent taxonomy of consciousness (Bayne and Hohwy 2016), assigning moral salience on the basis of consciousness in a precise, nuanced fashion is impossible. Cognitive neuroscientists' experimental methodology anchors research into consciousness in discernable systems of conscious activity, deriving a measurable, demonstrable definition of consciousness located in the brain's neuromechanisms (Dehaene 2014). Yet how this should accord with moral salience is controversial. Oakley and Halligan contend that the experience of consciousness is a passive emergent property of psychological processing, rather than an executive process that animates and directs our mental states (Oakley and Halligan 2017), rendering questionable its capacity to underpin moral significance. Humans, nonhuman animals, and created mechanical entities like robots may manifest equivalents of consciousness so defined at varying levels but are not accorded proportionate ethical, legal, and moral standing.
Pure Experience and Disorders of Consciousness
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2018
There is a wide variety of perspectives on consciousness that differs depending on discipline. For pragmatic reasons, I am interested in the intersection of clinical and ethical approaches. As described in the preceding, consciousness is clinically understood as wakeful awareness (Hohwy and Fox 2012). Ethically, consciousness has splintered into even more categories, including access consciousness (the processing of cognitive content, such as planning one’s day) and phenomenal consciousness (the qualitative experience of what it is like to be conscious of an experience like pain, or seeing a sunset, or a taste, often described in terms of qualia) (Block 2002; Hohwy and Reutens 2009). This difference can also be parsed as transitive consciousness (consciousness of something) and intransitive consciousness (consciousness as a state of being) (Dretske 2002).6
Related Knowledge Centers
- Awareness
- Cognition
- Introspection
- Perception
- Volition
- Metacognition
- Mind
- Thought
- Imagination
- Experience