Consciousness

1
Consciousness

• Our knowledge of attention ends at the point
  where something tells the attentional areas to
  amplify perceptual signals.
• What is that something?

2
Where is the mind?

• Does the mind reside solely inside the brain?
• Put another way, where does the mind come from?
• Is the mind a thing, subject to the same natural
  laws as other things?
• What are the problems if it is? If it isnt?

3
Dualism

• Many philosophers over the centuries have found
  it impossible to believe that the mind is merely
  part of the brain.
• The main idea of dualism is that the mind and
  brain are somehow separate and distinct entities.
• What questions does this raise?

4
Materialism

• If the mind and brain are separate, and the mind
  is a non-physical entity, how does the mind
  influence the brain? Why does a given mind appear
  to be tied to a specific brain?
• Materialism uses these questions to show that the
  mind must something that results from brain
  activity.
• Behaviorism
• Reductive materialism

5
Functionalism

• A philosophical descendent of materialism,
  functionalism was developed as a response to
  behaviorism.
• Behaviorism denies the utility of studying mental
  states.
• Functionalism requires it by theorizing about how
  the interactions of mental states yield complex
  behaviors.
• Information Processing Theory is the modern
  instantiation of functionalism most widely
  accepted among cognitive scientists.

6
Split-brain patients

• A treatment for severe epilepsy used to be to
  sever the corpus callosum, which eliminated
  routes of communication between the two brain
  hemispheres.
• One effect that this appears to have is the
  creation of two independent consciousness
  systems, where neither hemisphere is aware of
  what the other is doing.
• Patients are unable to name objects presented to
  the right hemisphere, but can exhibit appropriate
  semantic responses.
• Patients respond appropriately to commands given
  to the right hemisphere without understanding
  why.
• The left hemisphere can observe actions the right
  hemisphere takes, but then tries to fit them into
  its own context.

7
Unconscious processing

• How much do you know about what your brain is
  doing? Do you know exactly what youre going to
  say before you actually say it?
• To understand the nature of consciousness, it
  helps to understand just how much work is done
  unconsciously.
• Blindsight
• Hemispatial neglect
• Unconscious learning
• Automatic processing

8
Backward Referral

• The backward referral hypothesis says that we
  never consciously engage an activity. Rather, we
  do something and then become consciously aware of
  it, but our mind refers are awareness back to the
  event, so we think we decided to do it.
• Evidence shows that awareness of a given neural
  event lags behind the actual event by about
  500ms.
• However, it still takes time from when the neural
  cascade leading to an activity begins until we
  actually engage the activity.
• This time is longer than 500ms. Thus, we still
  have the opportunity to interrupt the activity
  before it begins.
• This is one possibility for the root of free will.