The case for using brain-based devices to study consciousness

Abstract

Introduction Within the past few decades, the nature of consciousness has become a central issue in neuroscience, and it is increasingly the focus of both theoretical and empirical work. Studying consciousness is vital to developing an understanding of human perception and behavior, of our relationships with one another, and of our relationships with other potentially conscious animals. Although the study of consciousness through the construction of artificial models is a recent innovation, the advantages of such an approach are clear. First, models allow us to investigate consciousness in ways that are currently not feasible using human subjects or other animals. Second, an artifact that exhibits the necessary and sufficient properties of consciousness may conceivably be the forerunner of a new and very useful class of neuromorphic robots. A model of consciousness must take into account current theories of its biological bases. Although the field of artificial consciousness is a new one, it is striking how little attention has been given to modeling mechanisms. Instead, great – and perhaps undue – emphasis has been placed on purely phenomenological models. Many of these models are strongly reductionist in aim and fail to specify neural mechanisms.