Abstract Conscious experience represents one of the most elusive problems of empirical science, namely neuroscience. The main objective of empirical studies of consciousness has been to describe the minimal sets of neural events necessary for a specific neuronal state to become consciously experienced. The current state of the art still does not meet this objective but rather consists of highly...
Abstract Predictive Processing theory, hotly debated in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, promises to explain a number of perceptual and cognitive phenomena in a simple and elegant manner. In some of its versions, the theory is ambitiously advertised as a new theory of conscious perception. The task of this paper is to assess whether this claim is realistic. We will be arguing that the...
Studies of consciousness have traditionally been based mainly upon the perceptual domains of consciousness. However, there is another side of consciousness, represented by various types of intrinsic conscious experiences. Even though intrinsic experiences can represent up to 50 percent of our conscious experiences, they are still largely neglected in conscious studies. We assume there are two...
The elusive relationship between the mental domain and the physical brain, known as the mind-body problem, is still a hot topic of discussion among philosophers and neuroscientists. Rather than solving this problem, our pilot study addresses the question as to whether personality features could influence intuitions of the mind-body problem, or more precisely, whether it is possible to identify...
Consciousness still stands as one of the most interesting and the most elusive problems of neuroscience. Finding its correlates is the first step toward its satisfactory explanation. Several theories have proposed its correlates but none of them seem to be generally accepted even though most of them share some very similar elements. These elements are the activity of the thalamus, which is...
In this review, we deal with two central questions of consciousness how and why, and we outline their possible future development. The question how refers to the empirical endeavor to reveal the neural correlates and mechanisms that form consciousness. On the other hand, the question why generally refers to the "hard problem" of consciousness, which claims that empirical science will always...
Abstract: We provide a brief overview of the shift toward the intrinsic view of brain activity, describing in particular the structural and functional connectivity patterns of the “Default mode network” (part I). We then consider the Default mode network in a specifically cognitive setting and ask what changes the focus on the Default mode network and other sorts of intrinsic activity require...
The paper focuses on methodological and historical analysis of historical events that shaped the previous and current research of neurology. In 2001 Marcus Raichle came with a surprising discovery, which is now widely known as the Default Mode Network (DMN). DMN brings new knowledge about brain activity and it also changes traditional beliefs about the brain. The scientific community had...