Consciousness Lecture Notes:
Lecture 1- The Problem
Ch 1-3 (pg 11-51 & 63-68)
What is consciousness?
• No accepted definition of consciousness
- Experience qualia
- Mind vs body
- Self
- Real vs Illusion
- Physical vs mental
• Studied among many disciplines→ philosophy, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and
evolution
• Psychoanalysts like Freud and gustav young- we only see the surface of what drives us
- Freud→ individually based subconscious that drives impulses
- Young- collective unconscious- reoccurrence of dreams
• Dual process theories→ fast and slow thinking
- Fast (unconscious)- automatic, emotional- impulses, drives, habits, beliefs
- Slow (conscious)- effortful, logical- reflection, planning, problem solving
• Consciousness is the basis of psychology
• Studying consciousness provides basic insight in the workings of the human mind
Philosophy of Consciousness:
• Dualism→ people reason dualistically across many ages and cultures- mind and body
are different
- Nature vs nurture debate- intuitive dualist vs cultural learning
- People are inclined to say that mental states continue more strongly after death than
physical states
• Descartes→ skeptic- how can we be certain that we know anything at all? I think
therefore I am
• Substance dualism→ the world consists of 2 different substances – Descartes
• Property dualism/ dual aspect theory→ the world consists of 1 type of substance but can
be described using both physical and mental terms
• Cartesian theatre→ Critique of dualism- if you think about consciousness its like a
person inside your head that observes what happens in the brain- Daniel Dennett
• Gilbert Ryle→ critique on dualism→ the dogma of the ghost in the machine
• Physicalism (materialism)→ conscious states are identical to particular arrangements of
physical stuff
- Patricia Churchland
• Idealism→ consciousness is the ultimate source of reality, not physical stuff
- George Berkeley
• Dualism→ conscious mind and physical matter are separate substances
- Rene Descartes
, • Functionalism (type of physicalism)→ consciousness does not depend on what a system
is made of but only what it does
• Panpsychism→ consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe- physical stuff
is also conscious
- David Chalmers, Giulio Tononi
• Mysterianism→ a physical understanding of consciousness lies beyond our
understanding
- Colin McGinn
• The explanatory gap→ the gap that there is between different levels of explanations
• The easy vs the hard problem→ how do we get consciousness from the brain?
- Easy problems→ the mechanisms which can be addressed by mainstream
cognitive science
- Hard Problems→ how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective
experience
- Responses→ hard problems cannot be solved, try solving, first try to tackle easy
problems, identify more hard problems (question distinction), no hard problem
Qualia
• Qualia= subjective experiences- linked to hard problems
• Thought experiments→ typically used in philosophy to make arguments, to clarify and
debunk reasoning fallacies
- Conducted for the topic of qualia- Mary, the color scientist, what is it like to be a bat?,
zombies
• Mary the color scientist→ Mary knows everything about colors and color perception but
Mary has been locked in a black and white room for her entire life
- If she were to leave her room do you think she would think oh I knew all this already
or would it make a difference seeing color herself for the first time
• What is it like to be a bat? → can we understand and know what its like to be a bat- they
see the world in a completely different way
• Qualia→ a quality or a property as perceived or experienced by a person
- Subjective experience
- The fundamental building blocks of sensory experience
- Little disagreement about the existence but strong disagreement about properties,
nature
- Eliminative materialists→ same as physicalism but refers to the idea that mental
concepts should be eliminated
Illusions
• Is it possible to have a different subjective experience of who you are?
• Illusions teach us something about the way we perceive the world
• Dissociation between perceptual input and subjective experience- useful in the quest for
the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)
• Perception vs cognition (cognitive penetrability)
• Intuitions about visual perception
- Visual experience is richly detailed
- Vision operates by representing the outside world in the brain
, • Illusions- filling in the gaps in our perception
- Blind spot
- Saccadic eye movements
• Change blindness→ we often do not note very apparent changes in visual scenes
• Inattentional blindness→ we fail to notice very obvious changes as we are focus on
something else
Lecture 2- The Brain
Ch 4-6 (pg 77-96, 103-117, 128-135, 138-141, 143-152)
Neural Correlates of Consciousness:
• The brain→ the physical footprint of consciousness
• We don’t fully understand consciousness and where it comes from yet
• Can we understand consciousness with the brain?
- Identity theorists and eliminative materialists→ yes- because consciousness IS brain
activity
- New mysterians→ No- we can never understand consciousness, even with the most
understanding of the brain (dualistic ideas)
- Extended Minders→ No- consciousness must include the person’s history, the world
around them and the brain’s interactions with the world- consciousness does not
happen in the brain
• How do we study the brain? → during certain behavior or during certain conscious states
- Single cell recordings in animals- uses electrodes- can target brain areas very
specifically- not ethical for humans and how useful is it actually to study a single cell?
Is consciousness even there in animals?
- fMRI- functionality of the brain, blood oxygen level in specific brain areas- related to
neuron connection, non-invasive, high temporal resolution, high spatial resolution
- PET- neurochemical communication in the brain- neurotransmitters, low temporal
resolution, more invasive as uses radioactive fluids
- MEG- uses and measures magnetic fields in the brain, electrical currents causes
magnetic fields
- EEG→ electrical activity is measured- similar to single cell in animals but no
invasion, measures entire network not just one cell, but low spatial resolution
• Where should measure in the brain in terms of space and time?
- The entire brain, brain networks, brain areas, brain modules, neurons?
- Which time scales? Seconds, milliseconds, weeks? Years?
• Which brain area?
- Medulla, pons, midbrain (brainstem)→ cardiac and respiratory functions- essential
for life
- Cerebellum→ basal motor functions
- Thalamus→ relay station for all sensory information
- Hippocampus→ stores all memories
- Amygdala→ essential in emotions
Lecture 1- The Problem
Ch 1-3 (pg 11-51 & 63-68)
What is consciousness?
• No accepted definition of consciousness
- Experience qualia
- Mind vs body
- Self
- Real vs Illusion
- Physical vs mental
• Studied among many disciplines→ philosophy, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and
evolution
• Psychoanalysts like Freud and gustav young- we only see the surface of what drives us
- Freud→ individually based subconscious that drives impulses
- Young- collective unconscious- reoccurrence of dreams
• Dual process theories→ fast and slow thinking
- Fast (unconscious)- automatic, emotional- impulses, drives, habits, beliefs
- Slow (conscious)- effortful, logical- reflection, planning, problem solving
• Consciousness is the basis of psychology
• Studying consciousness provides basic insight in the workings of the human mind
Philosophy of Consciousness:
• Dualism→ people reason dualistically across many ages and cultures- mind and body
are different
- Nature vs nurture debate- intuitive dualist vs cultural learning
- People are inclined to say that mental states continue more strongly after death than
physical states
• Descartes→ skeptic- how can we be certain that we know anything at all? I think
therefore I am
• Substance dualism→ the world consists of 2 different substances – Descartes
• Property dualism/ dual aspect theory→ the world consists of 1 type of substance but can
be described using both physical and mental terms
• Cartesian theatre→ Critique of dualism- if you think about consciousness its like a
person inside your head that observes what happens in the brain- Daniel Dennett
• Gilbert Ryle→ critique on dualism→ the dogma of the ghost in the machine
• Physicalism (materialism)→ conscious states are identical to particular arrangements of
physical stuff
- Patricia Churchland
• Idealism→ consciousness is the ultimate source of reality, not physical stuff
- George Berkeley
• Dualism→ conscious mind and physical matter are separate substances
- Rene Descartes
, • Functionalism (type of physicalism)→ consciousness does not depend on what a system
is made of but only what it does
• Panpsychism→ consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe- physical stuff
is also conscious
- David Chalmers, Giulio Tononi
• Mysterianism→ a physical understanding of consciousness lies beyond our
understanding
- Colin McGinn
• The explanatory gap→ the gap that there is between different levels of explanations
• The easy vs the hard problem→ how do we get consciousness from the brain?
- Easy problems→ the mechanisms which can be addressed by mainstream
cognitive science
- Hard Problems→ how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective
experience
- Responses→ hard problems cannot be solved, try solving, first try to tackle easy
problems, identify more hard problems (question distinction), no hard problem
Qualia
• Qualia= subjective experiences- linked to hard problems
• Thought experiments→ typically used in philosophy to make arguments, to clarify and
debunk reasoning fallacies
- Conducted for the topic of qualia- Mary, the color scientist, what is it like to be a bat?,
zombies
• Mary the color scientist→ Mary knows everything about colors and color perception but
Mary has been locked in a black and white room for her entire life
- If she were to leave her room do you think she would think oh I knew all this already
or would it make a difference seeing color herself for the first time
• What is it like to be a bat? → can we understand and know what its like to be a bat- they
see the world in a completely different way
• Qualia→ a quality or a property as perceived or experienced by a person
- Subjective experience
- The fundamental building blocks of sensory experience
- Little disagreement about the existence but strong disagreement about properties,
nature
- Eliminative materialists→ same as physicalism but refers to the idea that mental
concepts should be eliminated
Illusions
• Is it possible to have a different subjective experience of who you are?
• Illusions teach us something about the way we perceive the world
• Dissociation between perceptual input and subjective experience- useful in the quest for
the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)
• Perception vs cognition (cognitive penetrability)
• Intuitions about visual perception
- Visual experience is richly detailed
- Vision operates by representing the outside world in the brain
, • Illusions- filling in the gaps in our perception
- Blind spot
- Saccadic eye movements
• Change blindness→ we often do not note very apparent changes in visual scenes
• Inattentional blindness→ we fail to notice very obvious changes as we are focus on
something else
Lecture 2- The Brain
Ch 4-6 (pg 77-96, 103-117, 128-135, 138-141, 143-152)
Neural Correlates of Consciousness:
• The brain→ the physical footprint of consciousness
• We don’t fully understand consciousness and where it comes from yet
• Can we understand consciousness with the brain?
- Identity theorists and eliminative materialists→ yes- because consciousness IS brain
activity
- New mysterians→ No- we can never understand consciousness, even with the most
understanding of the brain (dualistic ideas)
- Extended Minders→ No- consciousness must include the person’s history, the world
around them and the brain’s interactions with the world- consciousness does not
happen in the brain
• How do we study the brain? → during certain behavior or during certain conscious states
- Single cell recordings in animals- uses electrodes- can target brain areas very
specifically- not ethical for humans and how useful is it actually to study a single cell?
Is consciousness even there in animals?
- fMRI- functionality of the brain, blood oxygen level in specific brain areas- related to
neuron connection, non-invasive, high temporal resolution, high spatial resolution
- PET- neurochemical communication in the brain- neurotransmitters, low temporal
resolution, more invasive as uses radioactive fluids
- MEG- uses and measures magnetic fields in the brain, electrical currents causes
magnetic fields
- EEG→ electrical activity is measured- similar to single cell in animals but no
invasion, measures entire network not just one cell, but low spatial resolution
• Where should measure in the brain in terms of space and time?
- The entire brain, brain networks, brain areas, brain modules, neurons?
- Which time scales? Seconds, milliseconds, weeks? Years?
• Which brain area?
- Medulla, pons, midbrain (brainstem)→ cardiac and respiratory functions- essential
for life
- Cerebellum→ basal motor functions
- Thalamus→ relay station for all sensory information
- Hippocampus→ stores all memories
- Amygdala→ essential in emotions
