Деятельность мозга и природа сознания: богословский аспект
Сретенское слово October 23, 2025 DOI: 10.54700/w6q9qe20 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that consciousness cannot be explained by neurophysiological phenomena alone because the subjective, first-person nature of experience cannot be reduced to objective physical processes. Proposes that a missing 'personality factor'—hypothesized to be grace, understood through theology—is required, and presents a metaphysical model in which brain processes act as a 'mirror' reflecting this grace to produce consciousness. |
Abstract
Elucidation of the connection between brain activity and consciousness is an urgent problem in neurobiology and philosophy of consciousness. The complexity of this problem is due to fundamentally different properties of physical processes and subjective phenomena. Neurophysiological studies have shown that subjective phenomena are associated with synchronous electrical activity of neural ensembles of the cerebral cortex, where the content of the subjective phenomenon is determined by the network coordinates of a simultaneously excited group of nerve cells. However, the question arises: how does the physical process of excitation of nerve cells turn into a sensation, a subjective, experienced phenomenon? The main difficulty is seen in the fact that all subjective phenomena are always ‘in the first person’, they are subject-oriented (or ‘who-oriented’), personal, whileall physical processes are fundamentally objective (object oriented), nonpersonal. The reduction of personality to the sum of physical processes is impossible. Therefore, it is impossible to explain consciousness on the basis of neurophysiological phenomena alone. To explain the transition from brain activity to consciousness, an important factor is missing — ‘personality factor’, which is the essence of consciousness. Understanding the nature of personality factor is only possible in the context of theology. The article makes an assumption that the nature of personality factor is grace. A metaphysical model of consciousness is proposed, in which the physical processes that occur on a neuron level and determine the content of subjective phenomena act as a “mirror” in relation to the initially given grace, which, being “reflected” by brain processes, is our consciousness.