As I recall, Thompson explains what is involved in dynamic systems theory in Mind in Life, which you are in the process of reading.
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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As I recall, Thompson explains what is involved in dynamic systems theory in Mind in Life, which you are in the process of reading.
To an extent that seems to be true, but life circumstances and luck play considerable roles in what a particular individual has available in his/her situation/environment to support and develop intelligence, talent, and personality.
It's true that Thompson as well as Varela and perhaps Noe have found Eastern thinking and practices to provide additional insights into consciousness beyond what we have traditionally understood in the West.
What do you think is the significance of these hypotheses and experimental observations? I too think that there is no single stream of consciousness without gaps of attention, but what does that mean for your current theory of consciousness? It would not be surprising if consciousness, as a product of nature, is subject to 'rhythmic pulses' of various natural kinds. We're also subject to our own biorhythms and our own diurnal 'clock', which does not always correspond to those of others.
I think the stream of consciousness has many tributaries; we really can think about more than one thing or idea at once, and meanwhile have our subconscious tugging at us with related images and feelings connected to what we are contemplating.
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Soupie asked: "at what level of computation might consciousness emerge. Atoms? Microtubuals? Neurons? Neural networks?
and Steve responded:
"And if consciousness is fundamental?"
I wonder what you mean here by 'fundamental', Steve. Do you mean that consciousness was/might have been generated at the Big Bang, which, we're assured, generated the expanding universe we think we live in?
Soupie asked: "at what level of computation might consciousness emerge. Atoms? Microtubuals? Neurons? Neural networks?
and Steve responded:
"And if consciousness is fundamental?"
I wonder what you mean here by 'fundamental', Steve. Do you mean that consciousness was/might have been generated at the Big Bang, which, we're assured, generated the expanding universe we think we live in?
I've missed the link to the paper you're discussing. Would one of you repost it? (Lots to catch up with today, thus too much tracking back and forth in the thread.)
I take it that the following is a quote from a post by Soupie?
Once I read the paper you're discussing I might understand the underscored. In the meantime my impression is that Buddhist and other Eastern schools of practice have worked with consciousness and mind rather than with 'brain processes'. What 'brain processes' does the author of the paper identify as having been discovered through meditation and reflection on what is experienced in meditation?
Can you be more specific, or cite the article?
Again, a specific paper would be helpful.
Here too we need to have the paper you read.
Still carrying your brief for Tononi. The question seems to be what it is that these chemicals 'integrate' in the brain?
I would also add that the brain's integrative processes and habits are surely involved in our ordinary experiences as well.
I would be surprised if there were no such correlations. What is the idea or claim you're nurturing in linking these references together? It seems, again, to be the belief that whatever we experience is entirely produced by and within the brain. Hope you will clarify.
Where can I read the text you're drawing from?
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
I wouldn't know. I don't play games of chance except the lottery. I figure if I'm gonna gamble, it might as well be for a few million in winnings
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Soupie
Paranormal Adept
He does give a brief introduction, yes, but I'd like to have a deeper understanding.
I finished the book several weeks ago by the way. A great book. I hope to offer some comments at some point.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Non-neurophenomenological wherein no attempt is made to identify neural process correlates.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
@Constance
Brain Waves as Neural Correlates of Consciousness
"When we are thinking, thoughts flicker in and out of our minds. What does that mean on the level of the brain? Recent research, conducted by researchers at at MIT and Boston University(link is external), suggests that when thoughts are in our minds, corresponding groups of neurons are oscillating in synchrony in a high frequency range, around 30 or higher, whereas thoughts that are no longer in our minds oscillate at lower frequencies. When several, distinct thoughts are held in mind simultaneously, several oscillating bundles are out of sync with each other.
The normal waken brain has brain activity that fluctuates between 8 and 100 Hz. An alert and active brain will tend to have neural oscillations, roughly, in the 40 Hz range in at least some parts of the brain. These brain waves are also known as gamma waves. Alpha waves—oscillations in the 8 to 12 Hz frequency range—and beta waves—oscillations in the 12 to 30 Hz range—become more prominent when you are inactive, for example, when you are passively watching television. Brain dead people and coma patients can have oscillations that approach zero. And in seizure patients the brain oscillates even faster and more regions of the brain vacillate in the same frequency range. In a grand mal seizure large areas of the brain flicker in synchrony at extremely high frequencies."
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v16/n8/full/nrn3962.html
"For over a century, the neuron doctrine — which states that the neuron is the structural and functional unit of the nervous system — has provided a conceptual foundation for neuroscience. This viewpoint reflects its origins in a time when the use of single-neuron anatomical and physiological techniques was prominent. However, newer multineuronal recording methods have revealed that ensembles of neurons, rather than individual cells, can form physiological units and generate emergent functional properties and states. As a new paradigm for neuroscience, neural network models have the potential to incorporate knowledge acquired with single-neuron approaches to help us understand how emergent functional states generate behaviour, cognition and mental disease."
Neural oscillation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.[78]"
You Won't Feel A Thing: Your Brain On Anesthesia
"So far, researchers have learned that different drugs create different patterns in the brain, Brown says. For example, propofol — one of the most widely used anesthetics — is a very potent drug and initially puts the brain into a state of excitation.
"It doesn't really cause a state of sedation or anesthesia [initially]," Brown says. "Then what we actually see next is the brain start to slow. [So first you see] a period where the brain is active, and then [when you give] a higher dose, the brain starts to slow."
In contrast, the drug ketamine — which is used in conjunction with anesthesia to make certain drugs work better — puts the brain into a state of excitation even at higher doses.
"The state of unconsciousness you get with ketamine is created by making the brain active," Brown says. "As you transition through this active state, you very frequently hallucinate. It's this hallucination or sense of euphoria or dissociative state that people who are using it as a drug of abuse are seeking.""
How Magic Mushrooms Change Your Brain
"Though previous research surmised that psilocybin decreased brain activity ( @smcder ), the current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what was really going on. The study used 15 participants with prior positive experiences with hallucinogens to avoid a bad trip inside the enclosed machine. Some of the participants received psilocybin, while the other half received a saline placebo.
Surprisingly, the researchers saw that upon receiving psilocybin, the brain actually re-organized connections and linked previously unconnected regions of the brain. These connections were not random, but appeared very organized and stable. Once the drug wore off, the connections returned to normal."
-----
While the above is not a collection of longform articles from scholarly journals, they all refer to research studies, etc.
It seems that consciousness—and its contents—are correlated with the synchronous occilations of neural networks (brain waves). How and why this should be is currently unknown.
For some reason, conscious experience is associated with particular brain waves. How these brain waves "give rise" or "bring forth" conscious experience is an exciting mystery.
From what I can gather, the computational and DST are the two, main competing models of how the brain operates; and thus, how consciousness is associated with brain waves.
Brain Waves as Neural Correlates of Consciousness
"When we are thinking, thoughts flicker in and out of our minds. What does that mean on the level of the brain? Recent research, conducted by researchers at at MIT and Boston University(link is external), suggests that when thoughts are in our minds, corresponding groups of neurons are oscillating in synchrony in a high frequency range, around 30 or higher, whereas thoughts that are no longer in our minds oscillate at lower frequencies. When several, distinct thoughts are held in mind simultaneously, several oscillating bundles are out of sync with each other.
The normal waken brain has brain activity that fluctuates between 8 and 100 Hz. An alert and active brain will tend to have neural oscillations, roughly, in the 40 Hz range in at least some parts of the brain. These brain waves are also known as gamma waves. Alpha waves—oscillations in the 8 to 12 Hz frequency range—and beta waves—oscillations in the 12 to 30 Hz range—become more prominent when you are inactive, for example, when you are passively watching television. Brain dead people and coma patients can have oscillations that approach zero. And in seizure patients the brain oscillates even faster and more regions of the brain vacillate in the same frequency range. In a grand mal seizure large areas of the brain flicker in synchrony at extremely high frequencies."
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v16/n8/full/nrn3962.html
"For over a century, the neuron doctrine — which states that the neuron is the structural and functional unit of the nervous system — has provided a conceptual foundation for neuroscience. This viewpoint reflects its origins in a time when the use of single-neuron anatomical and physiological techniques was prominent. However, newer multineuronal recording methods have revealed that ensembles of neurons, rather than individual cells, can form physiological units and generate emergent functional properties and states. As a new paradigm for neuroscience, neural network models have the potential to incorporate knowledge acquired with single-neuron approaches to help us understand how emergent functional states generate behaviour, cognition and mental disease."
Neural oscillation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.[78]"
You Won't Feel A Thing: Your Brain On Anesthesia
"So far, researchers have learned that different drugs create different patterns in the brain, Brown says. For example, propofol — one of the most widely used anesthetics — is a very potent drug and initially puts the brain into a state of excitation.
"It doesn't really cause a state of sedation or anesthesia [initially]," Brown says. "Then what we actually see next is the brain start to slow. [So first you see] a period where the brain is active, and then [when you give] a higher dose, the brain starts to slow."
In contrast, the drug ketamine — which is used in conjunction with anesthesia to make certain drugs work better — puts the brain into a state of excitation even at higher doses.
"The state of unconsciousness you get with ketamine is created by making the brain active," Brown says. "As you transition through this active state, you very frequently hallucinate. It's this hallucination or sense of euphoria or dissociative state that people who are using it as a drug of abuse are seeking.""
How Magic Mushrooms Change Your Brain
"Though previous research surmised that psilocybin decreased brain activity ( @smcder ), the current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what was really going on. The study used 15 participants with prior positive experiences with hallucinogens to avoid a bad trip inside the enclosed machine. Some of the participants received psilocybin, while the other half received a saline placebo.
Surprisingly, the researchers saw that upon receiving psilocybin, the brain actually re-organized connections and linked previously unconnected regions of the brain. These connections were not random, but appeared very organized and stable. Once the drug wore off, the connections returned to normal."
-----
While the above is not a collection of longform articles from scholarly journals, they all refer to research studies, etc.
It seems that consciousness—and its contents—are correlated with the synchronous occilations of neural networks (brain waves). How and why this should be is currently unknown.
For some reason, conscious experience is associated with particular brain waves. How these brain waves "give rise" or "bring forth" conscious experience is an exciting mystery.
From what I can gather, the computational and DST are the two, main competing models of how the brain operates; and thus, how consciousness is associated with brain waves.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
One of my favorite quotes from MIL from Thompson is the following: "Life is the constant regeneration of an island of form amidst a sea of matter and energy."
Form > Substance
Recently, I posted the following article: Could Travelling Waves Upset Cognitive Neuroscience? - Neuroskeptic
What I take from this, again, is that form is greater than substance. That is, rather than focusing entirely on specific neurons and neural clusters, we should be focuing on the form of the waves travelling through them.
For instance, if we want to study waves moving through the water, we could look at the individual water molecules (which obviously effect the formation and behavior of the wave), but the waves travelling "through" the molecules is distinct from the molecules. Its the same way with sound waves. Is it the same way with brain waves?
Is it not the medium through which they travel thats ultimately important but rather its the form of the wave? Information.
Exciting.
Two very interesting posts, @Soupie. I'm going to read the papers you linked and also ask you for a page citation to the quote from Mind in Life that you provided. (It's a long time since I read that book and I want to read the quote in context.) I think it would be good if you would pursue the line of thought you're currently laying out, and perhaps that the quotation from Thompson could serve as a guide as we discuss this with you:
"Life is the constant regeneration of an island of form amidst a sea of matter and energy."
It seems to me that mind can also be described this way, as 'the constant -- or perhaps, better, the continuous -- regeneration of form amidst a sea of matter and energy'. In the case of mind the form regenerated is, I think, the form of what we feel and what we think as we recover stability or balance from the chaos we are subject to in both these primary aspects of consciousness in its radically temporal existence.
"Life is the constant regeneration of an island of form amidst a sea of matter and energy."
It seems to me that mind can also be described this way, as 'the constant -- or perhaps, better, the continuous -- regeneration of form amidst a sea of matter and energy'. In the case of mind the form regenerated is, I think, the form of what we feel and what we think as we recover stability or balance from the chaos we are subject to in both these primary aspects of consciousness in its radically temporal existence.
This review of Mind in Life at amazon will help orient others here to Varela and Thompson's theory of enactive consciousness and the neurophenomenological research program they developed together and which Thompson continues:
By David J. Kreiter on August 28, 2011
Evan Thompson draws from the disciplines of biology, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to bring about a wide and varied discussion of one of the most significant philosophical questions or our time called the explanatory gap--the gap between our subjective experience and the laws of nature. "Exactly how are consciousness and subjective experience related to the brain and the body?" How is it that our subjective experience of the world sets us apart from our environment, when our environment and life are intricately coupled? Thompson contends that there can be no dualistic separation between the organizational properties of life and mind. In fact, Thompson says in the preface: "...the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of the self-organizing features of life." To understand mind it is necessary to understand life. And to these ends, Thompson references the great philosophical and scientific thinkers past and present in an attempt to sort out questions of what constitutes life and consciousness, and he carefully and respectfully points out what he believes could be the strengths and weaknesses of each hypothesis.
Since it is necessary to understand life in order to comprehend mind, it isn't surprising that the philosophical methodologies used to explaining life are similar to those used to explain mind. From my understanding of Thompson's work, it seems that there are two philosophically divergent paths that researchers have pursued to explain these concepts. One path, which encompasses the fields of cognitive science, computation, and genocentrism, is mechanistic, reductive, dualistic, and materialistic in nature. The other more meaningful and holistic path favored by Thompson encompasses principles including dynamism, autonomy, autopoiesis, and enactive evolution.
The theory of genocentrism supposes that the organism is merely a vehicle which the "selfish gene constructs and controls for purposes of its own survival. Genocentrism as a theory of life and evolution is similar to the view of computationalists in respect to the mind and the brain. Both incorporate the dualistic notion of hardware vs. software, matter vs. information and body vs. mind. Just as the genocentrist views the genes inside the cell as the software that controls everything from phenotype to evolution, so the computationalist views the mind as the controlling software inside the head. The author summarizes this idea by stating that "The view that life is essentially a matter of the genes inside the cell nucleus is homologous to the view that the mind is essentially a matter of a computer brain inside the head" (173). The main problem with the genocentrist view is that the theory presupposes that the apparatus of the cell is already in place for the DNA and RNA replication process. DNA and RNA are not self-replicating and are entirely dependent upon the self-replicating cell to establish an environment for the process of protein synthesis and reproduction. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the coding of the genes and phenotypic expression. In fact, while it was once believed that it took one gene to produce one protein, it has since been discovered that one gene can code for many proteins and the expression of these proteins is dependent upon quantum processes that allow individual proteins to fold into as many as a thousand different configurations to carry out their specific tasks. The multitude of processes that are carried out by the membrane and various organelles of the cell in their totality are what provide the milieu for the function of the genetic material. As Thompson states: "This notion of information as something that preexists its own expression in the cell, and that is not affected by the developmental matrix of the organism and environment, is a reification that has no explanatory value. It is informational idolatry and superstition, not science." (187)
Thompson details the shortcomings of genocentrism and espouses the viability of the enactive approach to explain mind and life. The author states that self-organization and natural selection are not mutually exclusive, but, are in fact, complementary aspects of a unified process of enactive evolution. The enactive approach takes into account the intentionality of life as well as the emergence of mind in the self-organizing processes that interconnect the brain, body, and the environment. The expression of life is not merely a matter of information, but a complementarity of information and meaning--an idea thoroughly explored in my book, "Confronting the Quantum Enigma, Albert, Niels, and John." (2011)
Thompson's assumptions hinge on the many researchers who have attempted to define life. The consensus view is that for something to be alive is must be "autopoietic". Autopoiesis is defined as a dynamic, self-organizing, self-replication system. Several researchers including Maturana and Varela contend that all autopoietic systems are also cognitive systems. Thompson states that if autopoiesis and cognition are what distinguishes life from non-life, then the process of understanding life and understanding mind are continuous.
This dense book of five hundred pages took me several months to plod through, but the effort was worth it. Evan Thompson left no stone unturned in his quest to understand life and mind in this well-researched masterpiece.
Review by David Kreiter, author of: Confronting the Quantum Enigma: Albert, Niels, and John.(2011--Available on Amazon). And Quantum Reality: A New Philosophical Perspective.
By David J. Kreiter on August 28, 2011
Evan Thompson draws from the disciplines of biology, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to bring about a wide and varied discussion of one of the most significant philosophical questions or our time called the explanatory gap--the gap between our subjective experience and the laws of nature. "Exactly how are consciousness and subjective experience related to the brain and the body?" How is it that our subjective experience of the world sets us apart from our environment, when our environment and life are intricately coupled? Thompson contends that there can be no dualistic separation between the organizational properties of life and mind. In fact, Thompson says in the preface: "...the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of the self-organizing features of life." To understand mind it is necessary to understand life. And to these ends, Thompson references the great philosophical and scientific thinkers past and present in an attempt to sort out questions of what constitutes life and consciousness, and he carefully and respectfully points out what he believes could be the strengths and weaknesses of each hypothesis.
Since it is necessary to understand life in order to comprehend mind, it isn't surprising that the philosophical methodologies used to explaining life are similar to those used to explain mind. From my understanding of Thompson's work, it seems that there are two philosophically divergent paths that researchers have pursued to explain these concepts. One path, which encompasses the fields of cognitive science, computation, and genocentrism, is mechanistic, reductive, dualistic, and materialistic in nature. The other more meaningful and holistic path favored by Thompson encompasses principles including dynamism, autonomy, autopoiesis, and enactive evolution.
The theory of genocentrism supposes that the organism is merely a vehicle which the "selfish gene constructs and controls for purposes of its own survival. Genocentrism as a theory of life and evolution is similar to the view of computationalists in respect to the mind and the brain. Both incorporate the dualistic notion of hardware vs. software, matter vs. information and body vs. mind. Just as the genocentrist views the genes inside the cell as the software that controls everything from phenotype to evolution, so the computationalist views the mind as the controlling software inside the head. The author summarizes this idea by stating that "The view that life is essentially a matter of the genes inside the cell nucleus is homologous to the view that the mind is essentially a matter of a computer brain inside the head" (173). The main problem with the genocentrist view is that the theory presupposes that the apparatus of the cell is already in place for the DNA and RNA replication process. DNA and RNA are not self-replicating and are entirely dependent upon the self-replicating cell to establish an environment for the process of protein synthesis and reproduction. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the coding of the genes and phenotypic expression. In fact, while it was once believed that it took one gene to produce one protein, it has since been discovered that one gene can code for many proteins and the expression of these proteins is dependent upon quantum processes that allow individual proteins to fold into as many as a thousand different configurations to carry out their specific tasks. The multitude of processes that are carried out by the membrane and various organelles of the cell in their totality are what provide the milieu for the function of the genetic material. As Thompson states: "This notion of information as something that preexists its own expression in the cell, and that is not affected by the developmental matrix of the organism and environment, is a reification that has no explanatory value. It is informational idolatry and superstition, not science." (187)
Thompson details the shortcomings of genocentrism and espouses the viability of the enactive approach to explain mind and life. The author states that self-organization and natural selection are not mutually exclusive, but, are in fact, complementary aspects of a unified process of enactive evolution. The enactive approach takes into account the intentionality of life as well as the emergence of mind in the self-organizing processes that interconnect the brain, body, and the environment. The expression of life is not merely a matter of information, but a complementarity of information and meaning--an idea thoroughly explored in my book, "Confronting the Quantum Enigma, Albert, Niels, and John." (2011)
Thompson's assumptions hinge on the many researchers who have attempted to define life. The consensus view is that for something to be alive is must be "autopoietic". Autopoiesis is defined as a dynamic, self-organizing, self-replication system. Several researchers including Maturana and Varela contend that all autopoietic systems are also cognitive systems. Thompson states that if autopoiesis and cognition are what distinguishes life from non-life, then the process of understanding life and understanding mind are continuous.
This dense book of five hundred pages took me several months to plod through, but the effort was worth it. Evan Thompson left no stone unturned in his quest to understand life and mind in this well-researched masterpiece.
Review by David Kreiter, author of: Confronting the Quantum Enigma: Albert, Niels, and John.(2011--Available on Amazon). And Quantum Reality: A New Philosophical Perspective.
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Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
@smcder
Killing the observer
"Abstract. Phenomenal consciousness is often thought to involve a first-person perspective or point of view which makes available to the subject categorically private, first-person facts about experience, facts that are irreducible to third-person physical, functional, or representational facts. This paper seeks to show that on a representational account of consciousness, we don’t have an observational perspective on experience that gives access to such facts, although our representational limitations and the phenomenal structure of consciousness make it strongly seem that we do. Qualia seem intrinsic and functionally arbitrary, and thus categorically private, because they are first-order sensory representations that are not themselves directly represented. Further, the representational architecture that on this account instantiates conscious subjectivity helps to generate the intuition of observerhood, since the phenomenal subject may be construed as outside, not within, experience. Once the seemings of private phenomenal facts and the observing subject are discounted, we can understand consciousness as a certain variety of neurally instantiated, behavior controlling intentional content, that constituted by an integrated representation of the organism in the world. Neuroscientific research suggests that consciousness and its characteristic behavioral capacities are supported by widely distributed but highly integrated neural processes involving communication between multiple functional sub-systems in the brain. This ‘global workspace’ may be the brain’s physical realization of the representational architecture that constitutes conscious subjectivity."
I haven't read this yet, but since you seem to have an affinity for the observer/knower approach, I thought you might like to hear their arguments.
Interestingly (for me), the neurophenomenological/DST approach is non-representational. MIL touched on this just a little bit. I'm not sure though in which sense it is not; ie, whether there are different varieties of representationalism.
Killing the observer
"Abstract. Phenomenal consciousness is often thought to involve a first-person perspective or point of view which makes available to the subject categorically private, first-person facts about experience, facts that are irreducible to third-person physical, functional, or representational facts. This paper seeks to show that on a representational account of consciousness, we don’t have an observational perspective on experience that gives access to such facts, although our representational limitations and the phenomenal structure of consciousness make it strongly seem that we do. Qualia seem intrinsic and functionally arbitrary, and thus categorically private, because they are first-order sensory representations that are not themselves directly represented. Further, the representational architecture that on this account instantiates conscious subjectivity helps to generate the intuition of observerhood, since the phenomenal subject may be construed as outside, not within, experience. Once the seemings of private phenomenal facts and the observing subject are discounted, we can understand consciousness as a certain variety of neurally instantiated, behavior controlling intentional content, that constituted by an integrated representation of the organism in the world. Neuroscientific research suggests that consciousness and its characteristic behavioral capacities are supported by widely distributed but highly integrated neural processes involving communication between multiple functional sub-systems in the brain. This ‘global workspace’ may be the brain’s physical realization of the representational architecture that constitutes conscious subjectivity."
I haven't read this yet, but since you seem to have an affinity for the observer/knower approach, I thought you might like to hear their arguments.
Interestingly (for me), the neurophenomenological/DST approach is non-representational. MIL touched on this just a little bit. I'm not sure though in which sense it is not; ie, whether there are different varieties of representationalism.
S
smcder
Guest
I have no such affinity.
Because there's no single paradigm, you can Google this paper and the author and find many counter-arguments ... for example, in the comments section here:
Ephaptic consciousness?
The author himself says:
Hi Charles,
I’m of course glad to have KTO discussed and glad you’re sympathetic to it (although I’ve since changed my mind about some things), but we should see whether Peter wants to host such a discussion and if so how he’d like to do it. There’s a thread that mentions my work at
http://www.consciousentities.com/?p=689
Where he says:
3. Tom Clark says:
Trond, thanks for the feedback. What I’m suggesting is that the sense in which one’s consciousness depends on being a representational system, like a brain, isn’t a causal relation. Epiphenomenalists usually think that there’s a one way causal relation from brain to mind, that the physical somehow produces or generates the mental, but that the mental has no effect on the physical. What I’m suggesting is a psycho-physical parallelism between phenomenal consciousness and the brain, with no causal interaction and in which the physical doesn’t have ontological priority (as it does for epiphenomenalists). But of course I reserve the right to be wrong about all this!
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