Concepts of Consciousness,Kinds of Consciousness,Meanings of `Consciousness'

The use of expressions like `concepts of consciousness', `kinds ofconsciousness', and `meanings of `consciousness' ' interchangeablyis ubiquitous within the consciousness literature. It is arguedthat this practice can be made sense of in only two ways. The firstinvolves interpreting `concepts of consciousness' and `kinds ofconsciousness' metalinguistically to mean, roughly, conceptsexpressed by `consciousness' and kinds expressed by`consciousness'; and the second involves certain literal,though semantically deviant, interpretations of those expressions.The trouble is that researchers frequently use the above expressionsinterchangeably without satisfying either way of doing so coherently.The result is considerable error and confusion, which is demonstratedin the works of philosophers currently writing on consciousness.     

Consciousness,Free Will,and the Sciences of the Mind

In his review of the trio of philosopher-scientist dialogues on the nature and capacities of the human mind, Paul Thagard (2018) advocates clearly and forcefully for a fairly extreme position, which he advances as preferable to an equally extreme alternative. I will suggest a middle path that becomes attractive when one attends not just to the range of data now pouring forth from the sciences of mind but also to our own experience as minded individuals.     

Consciousness,Higher-Order Content,and the Individuation of Vehicles

One of the distinctive properties of conscious states is thepeculiar self-awareness implicit in them. Two rival accounts of this self-awareness are discussed. Accordingto a Neo-Brentanian account, a mental state M is conscious iff M represents its very own occurrence.According to the Higher-Order Monitoring account, M is merely accompanied by a numerically distinctrepresentation of its occurrence. According to both, then, M is conscious in virtue of figuring in a higher-ordercontent. The disagreement is over the question whether the higher-order content is carried by Mitself or by a different state. While theNeo-Brentanian theory is phenomenologically more attractive, it isoften felt to be somewhat mysterious. It is argued (i) that the difference between the Neo-Brentanian andHigher-Order Monitoring theories is smaller and more empirical than may initially seem, and (ii) that theNeo-Brentanian theory can be readily demystified. These considerations make it prima faciepreferable to the Higher-Order Monitoring theory.     

Consciousness,Vorticity, and Dipoles

As spin is a fundamental feature of the universe, preliminary evidence suggests that its study could help in understanding consciousness. Research detailed in this article further develops the author's work in Keen (2005) Keen, J. 2005. Consciousness, intent, and the structure of the universe, Canada: Trafford. Available at http://www.trafford.com/robots/04-2320.html [Google Scholar]. The findings demonstrate that rotating objects generate fields that are also associated with mind-generated fields. Numerous quantitative properties of these fields generated by rotation are shown to be very different to fields associated with static objects. Dipole antenna radiation patterns are also discovered. The conclusions suggest that vorticity is not only involved in consciousness, but also has wider implications in understanding our universe, and therefore the subject warrants further research.     

Values,Consciousness, and Language

Two seminal thinkers, Edelman and Damasio, offer neurophysiological models of brain development and functioning that correspond with a contemporary psychoanalytic focus on dynamic experiential intersubjective systems. I describe their respective contributions under three headings derived from Edelman: values, consciousness, and language. I consider the scope of each of these topics as it abuts related psychoanalytic concepts.     

Consciousness,self-consciousness,and meditation

Many spiritual traditions employ certain mental techniques (meditation) which consist in inhibiting mental activity whilst nonetheless remaining fully conscious, which is supposed to lead to a realisation of one’s own true nature prior to habitual self-substantialisation. In this paper I propose that this practice can be understood as a special means of becoming aware of consciousness itself as such. To explain this claim I conduct some phenomenologically oriented considerations about the nature of consciousness qua presence and the problem of self-presence of this presence.

意识、觉知与反思

一、引言在日常的意识体验中,体验总有特定的体验内容。然而,意识不但关指某物,它也与特定的我粘连着。例如,你正在看一本书,你一边阅读一边建构着你读到的文本的意思;但对文本的知觉和对文本意思的理解并没有涵盖你心智中发生的一切。除了这些感知和体验的内容之外,在你的心     

Self-Deception, Interpretation and Consciousness

I argue that the extant theories of self-deception face a counterexample which shows the essential role of instability in the face of attentive consciousness in characterising self-deception. I argue further that this poses a challenge to the interpretist approach to the mental. I consider two revisions of the interpretist approach which might be thought to deal with this challenge and outline why they are unsuccessful. The discussion reveals a more general difficulty for Interpretism. Principles of reasoning—in particular, the requirement of total evidence—are given a weight in attentive consciousness which does not correspond to our reflective judgement of their weight. Successful interpretation does not involve ascribing beliefs and desires by reference to what a subject ought to believe and desire, contrary to what Interpretists suggest.     

Consciousness, the Vegetative State, and the Intrinsic Value of Life

Using the controversy surrounding the views of the Princeton University ethicist Peter Singer as a foil, the authors address the commonly held view that the appropriate time to terminate the life of a human being is when the individual has lost consciousness and there is no hope that he or she will regain it. They make an admittedly dubious case for the vegetative state, with which loss of consciousness is commonly equated, in order to clear the way for a more defensible basis for the termination of a human life, that of the person’s own personal, even if idiosyncratic view of when his or her life is no longer worth living.     

Thoughts,Processive Character and the Stream of Consciousness

Abstract

This paper explores the relation of thought and the stream of consciousness in the light of an ontological argument raised against cognitive phenomenology views. I argue that the ontological argument relies on a notion of ‘processive character’ that does not stand up to scrutiny and therefore it is insufficient for the argument to go through. I then analyse two more views on what ‘processive character’ means and argue that the process-part account best captures the intuition behind the argument. Following this view, I reconstruct the ontological argument and argue that it succeeds in establishing that some mental episodes like judging, understanding and occurrent states of thought do not enter into the stream but fails to exclude episodes like entertaining. Contrary to what it might seem, this conclusion fits well with cognitive phenomenology views, given that, as I show, there is a way for non-processive mental episodes to be fundamentally related to processive ones, such that they cannot be excluded from the phenomenal domain. This paper sheds light on the nature of different kinds of thoughts and questions a fundamental asymmetry between the perceptual and the cognitive domain when it comes to their ontology and temporal character.