Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Edmund T Rolls
Noise caused by randomness in the spiking times of neurons in the brain has a number of advantages, including contributing to probabilistic decision-making. However, noise results in the brain operating effectively as a non-deterministic system, which has implications for free will. Noise also results in decisions being taken probabilistically between the reasoning system and the implicit...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Timothy J. Crow
Hearing “voices”, the experience of thoughts as not one’s own, and incoherent speech are symptoms of mental illness (usually termed “schizophrenia”). Here I argue that (1) the “torque” is the feature that defines the human brain as four chambered by comparison with the two chambers of the generalized mammalian brain, (2) by separating “thought” from speech production in the frontal lobes, and...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Ralf-Peter Behrendt
Information encoded by the autoassociation network of CA3 situates landmarks and objects within an allocentric frame of space and time. Guiding locomotion across the spatial environment, and generally organizing behaviour that transcends space and time, the hippocampus creates phenomenal space and time themselves, thus laying the foundations for conscious awareness. It is argued that conscious...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Mark Solms, Jaak Panksepp
We believe that conscious mental phenomena (such as feelings) are not epiphenomenal to the workings of the brain. Feelings evolved for good biological reasons; they make specific, concrete contributions to brain functioning. Notwithstanding all the philosophical complexities, therefore, the non-conscious/conscious interactions that are the focus of this book are, in our view, causal...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Stan Franklin, Bernard J. Baars
Unconscious processes come in two varieties, the preconscious, whose contents may become conscious, and the never-conscious, whose contents may not. In this chapter we make use of Global Workspace Theory and its LIDA model to catalogue never-conscious and preconscious processes, and offer an explanation of the functionally of the distinction. The LIDA/GWT model suggests that the functional...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Elaine K. Perry, Valerie L. Laws
Among agents which alter the boundary between conscious and non conscious cognition, the ritualistic use of plant species (often in a spiritual context, hence ‘plants of the gods’) provides an example of long-standing empirical knowledge subsequently verified by scientific (chemical, pharmacological and psychological) evidence. Based on such an impressive record of acquired knowledge,...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Dominic H Ffytche
Neurobiological accounts of consciousness typically partition brain activity into two components: one correlated with conscious experience (the neural correlate of consciousness) and the other not. Here I use evidence derived from visual hallucinations in the context of eye disease – the Charles Bonnet Syndrome – to examine the nature of what might be termed the visual unconscious. Forcing us...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Gustav Kuhn
Magicians have developed powerful techniques to manipulate our perception and awareness. Many of these techniques share similarities with phenomena typically investigated by psychologists and neuroscientists. Here a novel approach to the study of consciousness is proposed which utilizes the magician’s expertise to complement more traditional experimental laboratory based research. It is argued...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Daniel Collerton
Dementing illnesses massively damage the structures and processes thought to underlie consciousness. However, maintained alertness, preserved awareness, and the appearance of hallucinations in people with dementia all suggest that consciousness survives extreme challenge; implying that conscious processes are extremely robust, and conscious content invariably present.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Colin W.G. Clifford, Justin A. Harris, Ehsan Arabzadeh
Although a large proportion of the human brain is dedicated to processing incoming sensory information, much of this processing is not accessible to consciousness. In an effort to understand what differentiates conscious from unconscious processing, we are concerned here with methodological issues in exploring the limits of unconscious processing. We first consider a conscious perceptual...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Michael E. Hasselmo
Consciousness is described in this article as a perception of self that is constructed for guidance of voluntary goal-directed behaviour, including neural mechanisms for mental time travel into the future during planning and into the past during episodic retrieval. Neural time travel draws on the distributed cortical perceptual processes for detecting the state of the self along multiple...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Dean Radin
Does telepathy – a purported means of communication unmediated by the ordinary senses – exist? Experimental evidence, meta-analyses and debates suggesting an affirmative answer can be found in a growing number of mainstream journals, and a physical basis for telepathy appears to be increasingly plausible based upon considerations of quantum holism and advancements in quantum information...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Heather Ashton
The endocannabinoid system acts as a neuromodulator, interacting with other neuromodulators such as the opioids. It influences all vital body functions and sets the tone of every conscious thought and feeling. It operates largely below conscious levels but occasionally floats into consciousness where it is perceived as perfect bliss and pain-free calm.
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Allan Hobson, Ursula Voss
In this essay, we develop our working hypothesis that consciousness in primates and humans is a state-dependent commodity that has at least two expressions. Waking and dreaming are two such states that differ in conscious awareness. In both states, we are perceptive and emotional. Whereas in dreaming, our thoughts are delusional, however, waking consciousness potentiates volition and...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Lucas Campos, Adrian Pichurko, George A. Mashour
We discuss the molecular and cognitive mechanisms of general anaesthesia and their relevance to the science of consciousness. General anaesthetics serve as an important tool to explore the transitions from conscious to unconscious processing, as these drugs rapidly induce a complete and reversible cessation of consciousness. With 40,000,000 patients undergoing general anaesthesia each year in...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Antoine Lutz
Exploring the initial findings of neuroscientific research on meditation, new horizons of further inquiry in consciousness research are apparent. While such studies of contemplative practices are still in their infancy, early findings promise to contribute in three key areas. These include: Neuroplasticity – physiological and psychological indices of short and long terms responses of the brain...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Kai Vogeley
Experiencing oneself as autonomous agent who interacts with others depends on the cognitive capacities of self-consciousness as awareness of ones own mental states and social consciousness as knowledge of other persons minds. The study of neural correlates of these capacities elicits an impressive overlap with the so-called “default mode of brain function” as a neurobiological universal of...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Armando D'Agostino, Ivan Limosani, Silvio Scarone
Periodicity, hallucinatory phenomena and lack of awareness of one’s detachment from reality seem to connect the subjective experience of dreaming to that of psychosis. Both can be considered fully conscious states of the brain/mind, with an immediate influence of non-conscious elements caused by an impaired interaction with the external world. Psychological and pharmacological induction of...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 22, 2009
Gordon G. Globus
The Transparent Becoming of World undertakes a penetrating inquiry into the quotidian world we take for granted and the brain that silently hoists our bubbles of world-thrownness. After critiquing the traditional views of direct realism, indirect realism and idealism, the continual becoming of world is explained by a novel integration of process dynamics, as formulated by Whitehead, Heidegger...
Advances in Consciousness Research
January 14, 2009
Panpsychism is the view that all things, living and nonliving, possess some mind like quality. It stands in sharp contrast to the traditional notion of mind as the property of humans and (perhaps) a few select ‘higher animals’. Though surprising at first glance, panpsychism has a long and noble history in both Western and Eastern thought. Overlooked by analytical, materialist philosophy for...
Advances in Consciousness Research
March 27, 2008
Greg Janzen
Combining phenomenological insights from Brentano and Sartre, but also drawing on recent work on consciousness by analytic philosophers, this book defends the view that conscious states are reflexive, and necessarily so, i.e., that they have a built-in, “implicit” awareness of their own occurrence, such that the subject of a conscious state has an immediate, non-objectual acquaintance with it....
Advances in Consciousness Research
March 15, 2006
Russell T. Hurlburt, Christopher L. Heavey
Written for the psychologist, philosopher, and layperson interested in consciousness, Exploring Inner Experience provides a comprehensive introduction to the Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) method for obtaining accurate reports of inner experience. DES uses a beeper to cue participants to pay attention to their experience at precisely defined moments; participants are then interviewed to...
Advances in Consciousness Research
January 22, 2004
During the last decade, the study of emotional self-regulation has blossomed in a variety of sub-disciplines belonging to either psychology (developmental, clinical) or the neurosciences (cognitive and affective). Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain gives an overview of the current state of this relatively new scientific field. Several areas are examined by some of the...
Advances in Consciousness Research
June 30, 2003
Paula Droege
A major obstacle for materialist theories of the mind is the problem of sensory consciousness. How could a physical brain produce conscious sensory states that exhibit the rich and luxurious qualities of red velvet, a Mozart concerto or fresh-brewed coffee? Caging the Beast: A Theory of Sensory Consciousness offers to explain what these conscious sensory states have in common, by virtue of...
Advances in Consciousness Research
April 28, 2003
Gordon G. Globus
Quantum Closures and Disclosures thinks together two seemingly irreconcilable discourses: An application of quantum field theory to brain functioning, called quantum brain dynamics, and the continental postphenomenological tradition, especially the work of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. Underlying both developments is a new ontology of nonCartesian dual modes whose rich provenance is...