Article States Of Consciousness in Sleep, Dream and Beyond: A Biothermodynamic and Neurocybernetic Evolutionary Study was published on February 1, 2000 in the journal Journal of Intelligent Systems (volume 10, issue 1).
We consider here how new results arising especially from brain imaging but also from other areas of brain science (single cell analysis, deficits) are modifying our understanding of the neural representations involved in consciousness. The problem is discussed in terms of the two basic questions:
In this paper we introduce two dimensions over which current and recent theories of consciousness vary. These dimensions are (1) vehicle versus process theories, and (2) non-specialized versus specialized theories. Vehicle theories of consciousness propose that consciousness arises from some inherent property of mental representations or neural systems, irrespective of the computations they...
principally concerned with the computational theory of cognition, rather than with phenomenal experience. With the maturing of cognitive science, there is a widely-held view that cognitive processes are computational, in the broad sense. They are implemented in the brain, which is a neural net, and in principle therefore they are implementable in artificial neural nets. Object recognition, the...