Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
October 6, 2025
Jakub Mihálik, Tomáš Marvan
1 citation
While neurophenomenal structuralism (NPS) is typically viewed as an account of why an experience, i.e. a conscious mental state, has a specific phenomenal character, Sascha Fink has suggested that NPS might also account for why one has an experience in the first place. According to Fink, the character-determining structures are incorporated in larger (meta-)structures that make the incorporated...
Front Psychol
November 15, 2022
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák
Neurocentrist identity theory and neuro-phenomenal typing: A commentary on Manzotti's, "The boundaries and location of consciousness as identity theories deem fit".
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2021
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák, Talis Bachmann et al.
We present a theoretical view of the cellular foundations for network-level processes involved in producing our conscious experience. Inputs to apical synapses in layer 1 of a large subset of neocortical cells are summed at an integration zone near the top of their apical trunk. These inputs come from diverse sources and provide a context within which the transmission of information abstracted...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
December 30, 2020
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák
The present paper was written as a contribution to ongoing methodological debates within the NCC project. We focus on the neural correlates of conscious perceptual episodes. Our claim is that the NCC notion, as applied to conscious perceptual episodes, needs to be reconceptualized. It mixes together the processing related to the perceived contents and the neural substrate of consciousness...
Frontiers in Psychology
2019
Michal Polák, Tomáš Marvan
29 citations
In this paper, we propose the following hypothesis: the hard problem of consciousness is in part an artifact of what we call the unitary approach to phenomenal consciousness. The defining mark of the unitary approach is that it views consciousness and phenomenality as inseparable. Giving up this conceptual commitment redefines, in a productive way, the explanatory tasks of the theory of...
Frontiers in Psychology
2018
Michal Polák, Tomáš Marvan
26 citations
One of the greatest challenges of consciousness research is to understand the relationship between consciousness and its implementing substrate. Current research into the neural correlates of consciousness regards the biological brain as being this substrate, but largely fails to clarify the nature of the brain-consciousness connection. A popular approach within this research is to construe...
Consciousness and Cognition
November 1, 2017
Tomáš Marvan, Michal Polák
26 citations
There is almost unanimous consensus among the theorists of consciousness that the phenomenal character of a mental state cannot exist without consciousness. We argue for a reappraisal of this consensus. We distinguish two models of phenomenal consciousness: unitary and dual. Unitary model takes the production of a phenomenal quality and it's becoming conscious to be one and the same thing. The...