Entropy (Basel, Switzerland)
July 28, 2020
Matthew Owen
8 citations
Mental causation is central to integrated information theory (IIT), which holds that consciousness exists because it is causally efficacious. This article surveys three problems for mental causation—the lack of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem—and assesses their threat to IIT under different metaphysical commitments. Three versions of IIT are distinguished: reductive, non-reductive, and non-physicalist. The lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening to all versions. Reductive and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining the causal closure principle. Non-physicalist IIT denies that principle but faces the pairing problem, for which a response is briefly outlined. The survey aims to clarify which commitments lead to which problems.
Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees
January 3, 2025
Matthew Owen, Darren Hight, Anthony G. Hudetz
Some brain-injured patients who appear unresponsive can covertly answer simple questions through neuronal responses, raising the possibility of including them in low-stakes medical decisions to protect their autonomy. The warrant for crediting these neuronal responses is analyzed from neurology, bioethics, law, and philosophy of mind. Nonreductive physicalism's causal exclusion problem casts doubt on interpreting neural activity as indicating a conscious response, while a hylomorphism-inspired mind-body powers model supports such interpretation.
Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees
October 18, 2023
Matthew Owen, Zirui Huang, Catherine Duclos et al.
Human cerebral organoids (HCOs), grown from stem cells to mimic developing brain tissue, may eventually manifest rudimentary consciousness, despite current limitations. Since HCOs provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness, this article applies three neurobiological theories—the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Integrated Information Theory—to assess whether HCOs could possess a neurobiological capacity for consciousness, analogous to how these theories are used with unresponsive brain-injured patients.
Synthese
September 25, 2019
Matthew Owen
A philosophical problem known as the causal pairing problem threatens to show that nonphysical minds cannot cause anything. This article argues that a dualist view called neo-Thomistic hylomorphism can avoid this problem. After explaining the problem and the hylomorphic framework, the author offers an account of how causal pairing works based on a core hylomorphic principle. The article then suggests that integrated information theory, a leading neuroscientific theory of consciousness, can adopt a similar approach to solve the causal pairing problem for itself.
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
January 1, 2019
Matthew Owen, Mihretu P Guta
The concept of neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is central to the scientific study of consciousness. Chalmers's influential definition holds that NCC are minimally sufficient for consciousness, but the meaning of sufficiency requires clarification. This article analyzes three relevant types of sufficiency—logical, metaphysical, and physical—and proposes a theoretical approach to consciousness studies based on the appropriate sense of sufficiency. The authors argue that their conception of NCC has important implications for research methodology, neuroethics, and the ongoing search for NCC.