Consciousness college 1: The problem
Philosophical approaches
➢ Only sensations → Berkeley (Mind only, the body may not even exist)
➢ Only matter exists → Materialism. Identity (brain=mind). Functionalism (brain states= mental
states). One should reduce everything to matter, everything can be measured. If you feel
happy, we should be able to measure this in the brain.
The problem is that they avoid problems by ignoring/denying question how mind an brain are
related.
➢ Epiphenomenalism: mind ← body/matter. It exists, but for no reason (opposite of evolution,
in which everything has a purpose).
➢ Panpsychism: everything is conscious; stones, trees. But it is impossible to investigate.
➢ Dualism (Descartes): mind → body/matter. They differ from each other and have an impact
on each other. The pineal gland is where mind stuff and body stuff interact.
➢ Ryle: The mind is a process of what the brain does. Relating the two is a mistake, there are
categories of talking; there are differences, describing the cafeteria, library, etc. ‘Where is
the university?’. You told the details, it’s a different category.
How did these philosophical approaches affect psychological approaches?
➢ Introspection → mind -> body/matter
➢ Psychophysics → mind <- body/matter
➢ Behaviorism → no mind, only body/matter
➢ Cognitive revolution → only mind, no body/matter
➢ Cognitive neuroscience, embodied cognition, functionalism (Mind and body are basically on
the same side of a coin). It gives you more information about the same thing.
Implicit functionalism: mental states identified by their functional role, not their phenomenal quality;
allows attributing states to computers, robots, animals.
Epiphenomenal qualia
Mary, the color scientist
o Studies the world through B/W screen in B/W room
o What happens if she leaves this room?
‘Wow, this is how red is like?’ or ‘Yes, I knew red would be like this!’.
Qualia must exist
Physicalism must be false Physical/physiological description is complete
→Epiphenomenalism? → Materialism
→Dualism? → Functionalism
Conversations with zombies
→ imagine a perfect zombie copy of yourself but…
● No trace of consciousness
● No ‘it is like being me’, no qualia
So consciousness is an unimportant extra? = epiphenomenalism
Subjectivity/qualia: is this a hard problem?
Responses:
➢ Hard problem cannot be solved
➢ Try solving (dualism; quantum physics)
➢ Tackle easy problems
➢ No hard problem (Churchland:Dennett)
,In order to react something we have to sense it: sensation
I have to recognize it as something I want to react to: recognition
I have to select my response, e.g. having the task to press a button: response selection
I have to execute my response: response executions
Subliminal priming: primes that cannot be seen facilitate word processing
The dorsal pathway is what you are not consciousness of.
Types of theoretical accounts
➢ Causal (dualist) theories
➢ Functionalism
➢ Representational theories
➢ Global workspace theory
Consciousness college 2: The world
The Cartesian Theatre
Daniel Dennett: Many so-called materialists subscribe to the Cartesian Theatre: makes them
Cartesian Materialists.
Few call themselves CMs, but they are, assuming:
- There is a (central) location where consciousness happens → we should be able to detect
this
- Consciousness as container → collects all information
- Time at which consciousness happens → all the information is collected and at some point in
time consciousness should happen.
Much like a movie theatre where everything is projected on the scene, but who is watching the
movie? So should there be a little person who is watching and producing the consciousness? There is
a causal problem. For whom does your brain do the collecting? This is not satisfactory with this
theory.
Thought-exercise: how we see colors. When you are told to imagine the color red, where do you
think you consciously ‘see’ this red spot?
There is a difference in where and w
hat: dorsal and ventral in the brain.
Global Workspace Theory (GWT)
Evolution has produced many different modules, they can be independent from others; so when
there is a problem you can use the module that can help you with this: language module, social
module, etc.
These modules are in capsulated, they are not affected by other modules, you don’t have to care
about the other modules when you want to look at one specifically.
You don’t have all the information with GWT, but it does know, how to recognize objects.
Accessibility = Subjectivity Phenomenal representation.
Non-theatre theories
➢ Libet: neuronal adequacy
o Temporal threshold
➢ Crick: consciousness = activity of neural assemblies
➢ Dennett: multiple drafts
o Multiple parallel processes that are selectively ‘probed’ → probing itself is selective,
even though there are more things going on in your brain, you just don’t focus on it.
, Attention and timing of perceived events
Difference between the time it is represented, and the other is the time where the representation
happens.
Which time is represented in you consciousness?
Overt and covert attention
Overt: The lines represent where the person was looking at. When you are told to
see if they are wealthy you will look at the furniture, floor, etc.
This is called overt attention, the eye movement is measurable. You can measure
what people listen to, look at, etc.
Covert: there were random letters shown for a very short
amount of time, he looked just at one place and remembered
the letters who were close to the point he was staring at.
What is the relation between attention and consciousness?
Consciousness directs attention Consciousness emerges from
perception/attention interaction:
Timing of cortical events
Sticking electrode in head, power on, tell me when in time you have perceived the stimulus first.
After 500ms, people reported that they felt something.
this is interesting because he also stimulated the skin, he
would use his device to locate the time. You would expect if
there was a cortical delay. After 200ms on the brain, where
would the other stimulus would be located? It was located
exactly where the point of time it was given.
The distance between the stimulus in the head, and where the consciousness is, must be shorter
than from the skin, but it isn’t, and this makes no sense.
The brain knows it takes time to travel when there is a stimulus on the skin, so it subtracts the time in
your brain.
A toe stimulus should take longer than an ear stimulus, but it doesn’t. your brain knows it is too late,
so it makes up for it. But when there is a stimulus in the brain, the brain doesn’t know where this
comes from so it takes longer (500ms).
Green: when you had it.
Purple: when you felt it.
The brain has learned that from the body parts that can be
stimulated, to take for account that there is a delay so it takes out
this time. It gets a good estimation from when the stimulus
actually took place.
Philosophical approaches
➢ Only sensations → Berkeley (Mind only, the body may not even exist)
➢ Only matter exists → Materialism. Identity (brain=mind). Functionalism (brain states= mental
states). One should reduce everything to matter, everything can be measured. If you feel
happy, we should be able to measure this in the brain.
The problem is that they avoid problems by ignoring/denying question how mind an brain are
related.
➢ Epiphenomenalism: mind ← body/matter. It exists, but for no reason (opposite of evolution,
in which everything has a purpose).
➢ Panpsychism: everything is conscious; stones, trees. But it is impossible to investigate.
➢ Dualism (Descartes): mind → body/matter. They differ from each other and have an impact
on each other. The pineal gland is where mind stuff and body stuff interact.
➢ Ryle: The mind is a process of what the brain does. Relating the two is a mistake, there are
categories of talking; there are differences, describing the cafeteria, library, etc. ‘Where is
the university?’. You told the details, it’s a different category.
How did these philosophical approaches affect psychological approaches?
➢ Introspection → mind -> body/matter
➢ Psychophysics → mind <- body/matter
➢ Behaviorism → no mind, only body/matter
➢ Cognitive revolution → only mind, no body/matter
➢ Cognitive neuroscience, embodied cognition, functionalism (Mind and body are basically on
the same side of a coin). It gives you more information about the same thing.
Implicit functionalism: mental states identified by their functional role, not their phenomenal quality;
allows attributing states to computers, robots, animals.
Epiphenomenal qualia
Mary, the color scientist
o Studies the world through B/W screen in B/W room
o What happens if she leaves this room?
‘Wow, this is how red is like?’ or ‘Yes, I knew red would be like this!’.
Qualia must exist
Physicalism must be false Physical/physiological description is complete
→Epiphenomenalism? → Materialism
→Dualism? → Functionalism
Conversations with zombies
→ imagine a perfect zombie copy of yourself but…
● No trace of consciousness
● No ‘it is like being me’, no qualia
So consciousness is an unimportant extra? = epiphenomenalism
Subjectivity/qualia: is this a hard problem?
Responses:
➢ Hard problem cannot be solved
➢ Try solving (dualism; quantum physics)
➢ Tackle easy problems
➢ No hard problem (Churchland:Dennett)
,In order to react something we have to sense it: sensation
I have to recognize it as something I want to react to: recognition
I have to select my response, e.g. having the task to press a button: response selection
I have to execute my response: response executions
Subliminal priming: primes that cannot be seen facilitate word processing
The dorsal pathway is what you are not consciousness of.
Types of theoretical accounts
➢ Causal (dualist) theories
➢ Functionalism
➢ Representational theories
➢ Global workspace theory
Consciousness college 2: The world
The Cartesian Theatre
Daniel Dennett: Many so-called materialists subscribe to the Cartesian Theatre: makes them
Cartesian Materialists.
Few call themselves CMs, but they are, assuming:
- There is a (central) location where consciousness happens → we should be able to detect
this
- Consciousness as container → collects all information
- Time at which consciousness happens → all the information is collected and at some point in
time consciousness should happen.
Much like a movie theatre where everything is projected on the scene, but who is watching the
movie? So should there be a little person who is watching and producing the consciousness? There is
a causal problem. For whom does your brain do the collecting? This is not satisfactory with this
theory.
Thought-exercise: how we see colors. When you are told to imagine the color red, where do you
think you consciously ‘see’ this red spot?
There is a difference in where and w
hat: dorsal and ventral in the brain.
Global Workspace Theory (GWT)
Evolution has produced many different modules, they can be independent from others; so when
there is a problem you can use the module that can help you with this: language module, social
module, etc.
These modules are in capsulated, they are not affected by other modules, you don’t have to care
about the other modules when you want to look at one specifically.
You don’t have all the information with GWT, but it does know, how to recognize objects.
Accessibility = Subjectivity Phenomenal representation.
Non-theatre theories
➢ Libet: neuronal adequacy
o Temporal threshold
➢ Crick: consciousness = activity of neural assemblies
➢ Dennett: multiple drafts
o Multiple parallel processes that are selectively ‘probed’ → probing itself is selective,
even though there are more things going on in your brain, you just don’t focus on it.
, Attention and timing of perceived events
Difference between the time it is represented, and the other is the time where the representation
happens.
Which time is represented in you consciousness?
Overt and covert attention
Overt: The lines represent where the person was looking at. When you are told to
see if they are wealthy you will look at the furniture, floor, etc.
This is called overt attention, the eye movement is measurable. You can measure
what people listen to, look at, etc.
Covert: there were random letters shown for a very short
amount of time, he looked just at one place and remembered
the letters who were close to the point he was staring at.
What is the relation between attention and consciousness?
Consciousness directs attention Consciousness emerges from
perception/attention interaction:
Timing of cortical events
Sticking electrode in head, power on, tell me when in time you have perceived the stimulus first.
After 500ms, people reported that they felt something.
this is interesting because he also stimulated the skin, he
would use his device to locate the time. You would expect if
there was a cortical delay. After 200ms on the brain, where
would the other stimulus would be located? It was located
exactly where the point of time it was given.
The distance between the stimulus in the head, and where the consciousness is, must be shorter
than from the skin, but it isn’t, and this makes no sense.
The brain knows it takes time to travel when there is a stimulus on the skin, so it subtracts the time in
your brain.
A toe stimulus should take longer than an ear stimulus, but it doesn’t. your brain knows it is too late,
so it makes up for it. But when there is a stimulus in the brain, the brain doesn’t know where this
comes from so it takes longer (500ms).
Green: when you had it.
Purple: when you felt it.
The brain has learned that from the body parts that can be
stimulated, to take for account that there is a delay so it takes out
this time. It gets a good estimation from when the stimulus
actually took place.
