Consciousness and the mind-brain relationship
Richard A. Gross
May 3, 2023 DOI: 10.4324/9781003357698-7 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | The text outlines approaches to consciousness rather than reporting new data. It argues that the 'hard problem' persists because third-person brain accounts and first-person experience resist reconciliation, and it presents competing explanatory strategies: brain-correlate theories such as the neuronal workspace model and integrated information theory, network neuroscience accounts of how complexity produces consciousness, evolutionary theories like Humphrey's 'inner eye' focused on why consciousness evolved, and Seth's proposal that perception as 'controlled hallucination' may link neural mechanisms to conscious experience. |
Abstract
Psychology began its life as a separate discipline taking consciousness/mental life as its subject-matter. The ‘hard problem’ of consciousness arises when we acknowledge that the physical brain (which requires a third-person account) is somehow involved in our subjective experience (which requires a first-person account). Freud’s account of consciousness is discussed alongside more recent, experimentally-based accounts, such as focal and peripheral attention, and automatic processing. Several kinds of consciousness have been identified, some applying to human and non-human species; self-consciousness seems to be largely confined to humans. Most theories of consciousness try to solve the ‘hard problem’ by identifying brain correlates of consciousness (such as the neuronal workspace model/NWM and integrated information theory/IIT). Network neuroscience/NN attempts to explain how the brain’s staggering complexity actually produces consciousness. Evolutionary theories, such as Humphrey’s ‘inner eye’, focus more on why consciousness evolved and its social-psychological functions. According to Seth, the view of perception as an active construction of the world (controlled hallucination) may form the basis for explaining the link between neural mechanisms and conscious experience.