Theory of mind and Darwin's legacy.

A satisfactory theory of consciousness remains elusive because both dualism and materialism wrongly exclude consciousness from the physical world. Consciousness consists of feeling, sentience, or awareness with five essential features: qualitativeness, ontological subjectivity, a unified conscious field, intentionality, and intentional causation. All conscious states are caused by lower-level neurobiological processes in the brain and are realized as higher-level brain features. Efforts to explain how brain processes cause consciousness have been disappointing. The unified conscious field gives organisms vastly increased power, and consciousness is necessary for higher functions of human and animal life.

Study at a glance

Abstract

We do not have an adequate theory of consciousness. Both dualism and materialism are mistaken because they deny consciousness is part of the physical world. False claims include (i) behaviorism, (ii) computationalism, (iii) epiphenomenalism, (iv) the readiness potential, (v) subjectivity, and (vi) materialism. Ontological subjectivity does not preclude epistemic objectivity. Observer relative phenomena are created by consciousness, but consciousness is not itself observer relative. Consciousness consists of feeling, sentience, or awareness with (i) qualitativeness, (ii) ontological subjectivity, (iii) unified conscious field, (iv) intentionality, and (v) intentional causation. All conscious states are caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain, and they are realized in the brain as higher level features. Efforts to get a detailed scientific account of how brain processes cause consciousness are disappointing. The Darwinian revolution gave us a new form of explanation; two levels were substituted: a causal level, where we specify the mechanism by which the phenotype functions, and a functional level, where we specify the selectional advantage that the phenotype provides. Sociobiology attempted to explain general features of human society, ethics, etc. It failed. For the incest taboo, it confuses inhibition with prohibition. It did not explain the moral force of the taboo. To explain the function of consciousness we cannot ask, "What would be subtracted if we subtracted consciousness but left everything else the same?" We cannot leave everything else the same because consciousness is necessary for higher functions of human and animal life. The unified conscious field gives the organism vastly increased power.