CONSCIOUSNESS

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CONSCIOUSNESS
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MEANINGS

• 1. AWARENESS all living things
• 2. SELF AWARENESS- child,chimps?
• 3. accessing/processing information
• 4. subjective experience phenomenal
  experience. My pain - your pain
• 5. qualia the subjective feelings aroused by
  smells, colours, events etc
• 6. what it is like to be

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THE PROBLEM(S)

• 1. THE CENTRAL PROBLEM ( what is usually called
  the hard problem) is HOW CAN A MATERIAL BRAIN
  PRODUCE SUBJECTIVE FEELINGS?
• 2. there are many other problems concerning brain
  processes and causes of vision, perception,
  decisionmaking etc
• 3. a related problem is the I , the self who
  acts, and has these experiences

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POSITIONS AND APPROACHES

• 1. A DUALIST POSITION
• 2. A MATERIALIST OR PHYSICALIST
• 3. A NON REDUCTIVE PHYSICALIST
• 4. there are several variants of these positions

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THE DUALIST POSITION

• 1. MIND AND BODY ARE DISTINCT THINGS OR
  STUFF OR MATERIAL
• 2. associated with Descartes
• 3. mental events like thoughts, feelings etc
  seem different from body events like running,
  holding etc- so mind/body differ
• 4. Few hold this view today Popper and Eccles
  and a few others hold versions.

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A MATERIALIST POSITION

• 1. THERE IS NO MIND ONLY BRAIN
• 2. ALL MENTAL EVENTS MAY BE EXPLAINED BY BRAIN
  PROCESSES
• 3. SO FEELING HAPPY OR SAD IS A MATTER OF
  NEURONAL ACTIVITY
• 4. EVENTUALLY ALL OUR FOLK PSYCHOLOGY WILL BE
  REWRITTEN AS NEUROSCIENCE
• THE EVIDENCE?

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BRAIN PROCESSES-1

• LOCATION OF BRAIN FUNCTIONS
• THE CLINICAL EVIDENCE OF LOSS AND PLASTICITY IN
  BRAIN FUNCTION
• NCC- neural correlates of consciousness
• Examples-pain and the use of mri etc
• Vision- filling in blind sight
• So where and what is mind and consciousness?

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Methods of enquiry

• PET positron emission tomography
• fMRI- functional magnetic resonance imaging
• MEG magnetoencephalography
• CAT- computerised axial tomography
• Tomography Xray photos in which shadows of
  structures before and behind the section under
  investigation do not show
• EEG electro encephalogram a picture of
  electrical waves

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THE BRAIN
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THE BRAIN 2
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THE BRAIN
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THE BRAIN
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BRAIN AND VISION
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BRAIN AND VISION
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BRAIN AND VISUAL SYSTEM
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BRAIN PROCESSES-2-feelings and action

• LIBET and decisionmaking. Freewill?
• Attitudes and behaviour consistent?
• Brain ,drugs, feelings and behaviour
• Dreaming and brain processes
• Unconscious and sub conscious thought and
  behaviour incl. speech
• ESP, near death experience, psychic work

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Conclusion to physicalism

• Many new findings in past 20-30 yrs
• But better understanding of relation between
  physical/neuronal activity and expression of
  feelings gives only neural correlates of
  consciousness
• So-conclude we still do not know what
  consciousness is or what it does or how it does
  it ( or if it exists)

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NON REDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM

• This position probably the standard position
  among philosophers
• It allows a physical explanation of mental
  events but..
• It denies a strict reduction of higher order
  mental events to physics
• There are some difficulties with this position

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CAUSATION and SCIENTIFIC REDUCTIONISM

• How do we explain mental events causing physical
  events?
• How to explain physical events causing mental
  events?
• Levels of explanation
• Does everything have to be reduced to physics?
• Are higher order explanations legit ?

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Antonio Damasio
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MODELS OF MIND-BRAIN

• INFORMATION PROCESSING?
• The chinese room thought experiment
• THE GIST THEORY
• GLOBAL WORKPLACE THEORY
• DENNETTS MULTIPLE DRAFTS MODEL
• DAMASIO ON CONSCIOUSNESS

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DAN DENNETT
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CONSCIOUSNESS,COMPUTERS and A.I.

• If robots mimic humans and behave like humans can
  they have consciousness?
• The zombie literature
• Is a Turing test relevant for robots?
• Is a computing model of brain-mind appropriate?

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CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SELF

• IS THERE AN I THAT PUTS IT ALTOGETHER?
• IS THERE SOME CPU THAT CONTROLS AND DECIDES
• IS THERE A PLACE IN THE BRAIN WHERE THINGS COME
  TOGETHER AND ACTION IS DECIDED?
• WHAT COUNTS AS ME? Who/what am I

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EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

• IF CONSCIOUSNESS EXISTS WHAT ADVANTAGE DOES IT
  GIVE US?
• WHEN DID WE ACQUIRE IT ?
• DO ONLY HUMANS HAVE IT?
• IS LANGUAGE, CULTURE ETC ESSENTIAL FOR IT?
• SO perhaps consciousness just IS social
  interaction

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CONCLUSIONS

• THERE IS NO AGREED ANSWER
• THERE SEEMS NO THING THAT IT IS OR PLACE WHERE
  IT IS LOCATED
• So - cannot ever solve the problem
• - crack the easier points and then..
• - need a new approach
• - there is no problem