Mathematical foundations of consciousness

We employ the Zermelo–Fränkel Axioms that characterize sets as mathematical primitives. The Anti-foundation Axiom plays a significant role in our development, since among other of its features, its replacement for the Axiom of Foundation in the Zermelo–Fränkel Axioms motivates Platonic interpretations. These interpretations also depend on such allied notions for sets as pictures, graphs, decorations, labelings and various mappings that we use. A syntax and semantics of operators acting on sets is developed. Such features enable construction of a theory of non-well-founded sets that we use to frame mathematical foundations of consciousness. To do this we introduce a supplementary axiomatic system that characterizes experience and consciousness as primitives. The new axioms proceed through characterization of so-called consciousness operators. The Russell operator plays a central role and is shown to be one example of a consciousness operator. Neural networks supply striking examples of non-well-founded graphs the decorations of which generate associated sets, each with a Platonic aspect. Employing our foundations, we show how the supervening of consciousness on its neural correlates in the brain enables the framing of a theory of consciousness by applying appropriate consciousness operators to the generated sets in question.     

Mind,Consciousness, and Free Will

This commentary discusses how philosophy and science can collaborate to understand the human mind, considering dialogues involving three philosophers and three cognitive scientists. Their topics include the relation of philosophy and science, the nature of mind, the problem of consciousness, and the existence of free will. I argue that philosophy is more general and normative than science, but they are interdependent. Philosophy can build on the cognitive sciences to develop a theory of mind I call “multilevel materialism,” which integrates molecular, neural, mental, and social mechanisms. Consciousness is increasingly being understood as resulting from neural mechanisms. Scientific advances make the traditional concept of free will implausible, but “freeish” will is consistent with new theories of decision making and action resulting from brain processes. Philosophers should work closely with scientists to address profound problems about knowledge, reality, and values.     

Consciousness: A neurobiological approach

Consciousness and the disorders of consciousness can be more fully understood once they are integrated with the neurobiology of mental events. After a review of animal and human research, we found several anatomical structures in the central nervous system are required for consciousness. Identification of the critical structures, however, depends on what is meant by consciousness. In the general sense of mental responsivity, the reticular activating system must be intact. Consciousness has also been defined as the awareness of the sights, sounds, and feelings of everyday experience. In this sense, the system of sensory inputs and outputs of the anterior temporal cortex, amygdala, and the hippocampus must be functional. There is no neural evidence for “higher” consciousness.     

Towards a true neural stance on consciousness

Consciousness is traditionally defined in mental or psychological terms. In trying to find its neural basis, introspective or behavioral observations are considered the gold standard, to which neural measures should be fitted. I argue that this poses serious problems for understanding the mind-brain relationship. To solve these problems, neural and behavioral measures should be put on an equal footing. I illustrate this by an example from visual neuroscience, in which both neural and behavioral arguments converge towards a coherent scientific definition of visual consciousness. However, to accept this definition, we need to let go of our intuitive or psychological notions of conscious experience and let the neuroscience arguments have their way. Only by moving our notion of mind towards that of brain can progress be made.     

Mencius's Vertical Faculties and Moral Nativism

This paper compares and contrasts Mencius's moral philosophy with recent development in cognitive science regarding mental capacity to understand moral rules and principles. Several cognitive scientists argue that the human mind has innate cognitive and emotive foundations of morality. In this paper, Mencius's moral theory is interpreted from the perspective of faculty psychology and cognitive modularity, a theoretical hypothesis in cognitive science in which the mind is understood as a system of specialized mental components. Specifically, Mencius's Four Beginnings (the basic human emotions that serve as the foundations of morality) are interpreted as vertical faculties, comparable to Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's moral faculties.     

Radical embodiment: neural dynamics and consciousness

We propose a new approach to the neuroscience of consciousness, growing out of the ‘enactive’ viewpoint in cognitive science. This approach aims to map the neural substrates of consciousness at the level of large-scale, emergent and transient dynamical patterns of brain activity (rather than at the level of particular circuits or classes of neurons), and it suggests that the processes crucial for consciousness cut across the brain–body–world divisions, rather than being brain-bound neural events. Whereas standard approaches to the neural correlates of consciousness have assumed a one-way causal-explanatory relationship between internal neural representational systems and the contents of consciousness, our approach allows for theories and hypotheses about the two-way or reciprocal relationship between embodied conscious states and local neuronal activity.     

Neural synchronization as a hypothetical explanation of the psychoanalytic unconscious

Cognitive scientists have tried to explain the neural mechanisms of unconscious mental states such as coma, epileptic seizures, and anesthesia-induced unconsciousness. However these types of unconscious states are different from the psychoanalytic unconscious. In this review, we aim to present our hypothesis about the neural correlates underlying psychoanalytic unconscious. To fulfill this aim, we firstly review the previous explanations about the neural correlates of conscious and unconscious mental states, such as brain oscillations, synchronicity of neural networks, and cognitive binding. By doing so, we hope to lay a neuroscientific ground for our hypothesis about neural correlates of psychoanalytic unconscious; parallel but unsynchronized neural networks between different layers of consciousness and unconsciousness. Next, we propose a neuroscientific mechanism about how the repressed mental events reach the conscious awareness; the lock of neural synchronization between two mental layers of conscious and unconscious. At the last section, we will discuss the data about schizophrenia as a clinical example of our proposed hypothesis.     

The spatial intersection of minds

Spatial formats of information are ubiquitous in the cognitive and neural sciences. There are neural uses of space in the topographic maps found throughout cortex. There are metaphorical uses of space in cognitive linguistics, physical uses of space in ecological psychology, and mathematical uses of space in dynamical systems theory. These varied informational uses of space each provide a single contiguous medium through which cognitive processes can be shared across subsystems. As we further develop our understanding of how the human mind processes information in real time, the continuous sharing and cascading of information patterns between brain areas can be extended to a sharing and cascading of information between multiple brains and bodies to produce coordinated behavior. Essentially, the way you and the people around you negotiate your shared space affects the way you think, because space is a fundamental part of how you think. It is via space that the mental processes of one mind can form an intersection with the mental processes of another mind.     

Drop it like it’s HOT: a vicious regress for higher-order thought theories

Higher-order thought (HOT) theories of consciousness attempt to explain what it takes for a mental state to be conscious, rather than unconscious, by means of a HOT that represents oneself as being in the state in question. Rosenthal (in: Liu, Perry (eds) Consciousness and the self: new essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011) stresses that the way we are aware of our own conscious states requires essentially indexical self-reference. The challenge for defenders of HOT theories is to show that there is a way to explain the required reference-fixing mechanisms that is compatible with the theory. According to Rosenthal, the reference to oneself as such is grounded in the disposition to identify the individual the HOT refers to as the individual who has that HOT. I argue that this leads to a vicious infinite regress on the more than plausible assumption that our cognitive capacities are limited. This leaves such theories without a foundation, since self-reference is thought essential to consciousness.

     

Synchronous neural oscillations and cognitive processes

The central problem for cognitive neuroscience is to describe how cognitive processes arise from brain processes. This review summarizes the recent evidence that synchronous neural oscillations reveal much about the origin and nature of cognitive processes such as memory, attention and consciousness. Memory processes are most closely related to theta and gamma rhythms, whereas attention seems closely associated with alpha and gamma rhythms. Conscious awareness may arise from synchronous neural oscillations occurring globally throughout the brain rather than from the locally synchronous oscillations that occur when a sensory area encodes a stimulus. These associations between the dynamics of the brain and cognitive processes indicate progress towards a unified theory of brain and cognition.     

Same old, same old: the same-order representation theory of consciousness and the division of phenomenal labor

The same-order representation theory of consciousness holds that conscious mental states represent both the world and themselves. This complex representational structure is posited in part to avoid a powerful objection to the more traditional higher-order representation theory of consciousness. The objection contends that the higher-order theory fails to account for the intimate relationship that holds between conscious states and our awareness of them–the theory ‘divides the phenomenal labor’ in an illicit fashion. This ‘failure of intimacy’ is exposed by the possibility of misrepresentation by higher-order states. In this paper, I argue that despite appearances, the same-order theory fails to avoid the objection, and thus also has troubles with intimacy. A version of this paper was presented at the ‘Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness’ conference, Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona, March 18th–20th, 2005.     

Précis of Neural organization: structure, function, and dynamics

NEURAL ORGANIZATION: Structure, function, and dynamics shows how theory and experiment can supplement each other in an integrated, evolving account of the brain's structure, function, and dynamics. (1) STRUCTURE: Studies of brain function and dynamics build on and contribute to an understanding of many brain regions, the neural circuits that constitute them, and their spatial relations. We emphasize Szentágothai's modular architectonics principle, but also stress the importance of the microcomplexes of cerebellar circuitry and the lamellae of hippocampus. (2) FUNCTION: Control of eye movements, reaching and grasping, cognitive maps, and the roles of vision receive a functional decomposition in terms of schemas. Hypotheses as to how each schema is implemented through the interaction of specific brain regions provide the basis for modeling the overall function by neural networks constrained by neural data. Synthetic PET integrates modeling of primate circuitry with data from human brain imaging. (3) DYNAMICS: Dynamic system theory analyzes spatiotemporal neural phenomena, such as oscillatory and chaotic activity in both single neurons and (often synchronized) neural networks, the self-organizing development and plasticity of ordered neural structures, and learning and memory phenomena associated with synaptic modification. Rhythm generation involves multiple levels of analysis, from intrinsic cellular processes to loops involving multiple brain regions. A variety of rhythms are related to memory functions. The Précis presents a multifaceted case study of the hippocampus. We conclude with the claim that language and other cognitive processes can be fruitfully studied within the framework of neural organization that the authors have charted with John Szentágothai.     

脑的感知觉无意识加工及其研究进展

该文从无意识加工与认知、脑结构,神经网络的关系等三个层面,阐述了近年来认知神经科学在无意识研究方面的进展。主要就无意识与意识的相互转化、无意识加工与认知层次、脑结构之间的关联性、突触的联结方式等问题进行了讨论,并对认知神经科学如何研究无意识与意识问题提出展望,     

Two theories of consciousness: Semantic pointer competition vs. information integration

Consciousness results from three mechanisms: representation by firing patterns in neural populations, binding of representations into more complex representations called semantic pointers, and competition among semantic pointers to capture the most important aspects of an organism’s current state. We contrast the semantic pointer competition (SPC) theory of consciousness with the hypothesis that consciousness is the capacity of a system to integrate information (IIT). We describe computer simulations to show that SPC surpasses IIT in providing better explanations of key aspects of consciousness: qualitative features, onset and cessation, shifts in experiences, differences in kinds across different organisms, unity and diversity, and storage and retrieval.     

A software agent model of consciousness.

Baars (1988, 1997) has proposed a psychological theory of consciousness, called global workspace theory. The present study describes a software agent implementation of that theory, called "Conscious" Mattie (CMattie). CMattie operates in a clerical domain from within a UNIX operating system, sending messages and interpreting messages in natural language that organize seminars at a university. CMattie fleshes out global workspace theory with a detailed computational model that integrates contemporary architectures in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Baars (1997) lists the psychological "facts that any complete theory of consciousness must explain" in his appendix to In the Theater of Consciousness; global workspace theory was designed to explain these "facts." The present article discusses how the design of CMattie accounts for these facts and thereby the extent to which it implements global workspace theory.