Consciousness as an Emergent Phenomenon: A Tale of Different Levels of Description.

This theoretical paper argues that consciousness should be understood as an emergent phenomenon that arises from complex interactions across different levels of description, from neural activity to subjective experience. The authors contend that reducing consciousness solely to neural correlates fails to capture its full nature, and instead propose that a multi-level explanatory framework is necessary. They draw on examples from physics and biology to illustrate how emergent properties can be coherently described without reductionism. The paper concludes that consciousness is best approached as a phenomenon that requires both bottom-up and top-down explanations, integrating insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and cognitive science.

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Abstract

Consciousness as an Emergent Phenomenon: A Tale of Different Levels of Description.