Abstract

Two main open questions in current consciousness research concern (i) the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) and (ii) the relationship between neural activity and first-person, subjective experience. Here, possible answers are sketched for both of these, by means of a model-based analysis of what is required for one to admit having a conscious experience. To this end, a model is proposed that allows reasoning, albeit necessarily in a simplistic manner, about all of the so called “easy problems” of consciousness, from discrimination of stimuli to control of behavior and language. First, it is argued that current neuroscientific knowledge supports the view of perception and action selection as two examples of the same basic phenomenon, such that one can meaningfully refer to neuronal activations involved in perception as covert behavior. Building on existing neuroscientific and psychological models, a narrative behavior model is proposed, outlining how the brain selects covert (and sometimes overt) behaviors to construct a complex, multi-level narrative about what it is like to be the individual in question. It is hypothesized that we tend to admit a conscious experience of X if, at the time of judging consciousness, we find ourselves acceptably capable of performing narrative behavior describing X. It is argued that the proposed account reconciles seemingly conflicting empirical results, previously presented as evidence for competing theories of consciousness, and suggests that well-defined, experiment-independent NCCs are unlikely to exist. Finally, an analysis is made of what the modeled narrative behavior machinery is and is not capable of. It is discussed how an organism endowed with such a machinery could, from its first-person perspective, come to adopt notions such as “subjective experience,” and of there being “hard problems,” and “explanatory gaps” to be addressed in order to understand consciousness.

Highlights

  • The philosophical and scientific discussion of consciousness is age-old, but has increased notably in intensity and level of detail during the last few decades, not least thanks to advances in the neurosciences

  • One of the aims of this paper is to show that using the term behavior in this way establishes a mindset that can lead to more fruitful discussions of consciousness. (ii) The framework clarifies in more operational detail what one might mean by claiming perception to be a type of behavior, as some authors have (Skinner, 1984; O’Regan and Noë, 2001; Pierce and Cheney, 2004). (iii) It will serve as the basis for the narrative behavior model to be sketched

  • In summary form, one arrives at the following proposed operational definition of “consciousness,” i.e., the following hypothesis on what it takes to admit consciousness: Current or historical “consciousness”: We tend to say that we have a conscious experience of X when we attempt to describe X by means of covert narrative behaviors providing perceptual, as in visual/auditory/olfactory/etc., detail about X, and, with the support of current sensory input find ourselves acceptably capable of doing so

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Summary

Introduction

The philosophical and scientific discussion of consciousness is age-old, but has increased notably in intensity and level of detail during the last few decades, not least thanks to advances in the neurosciences. A common approach to searching for the NCC has been the contrastive method (Baars, 1988), where brain activity during consciousness, for example of a visual stimulus, is contrasted with brain activity where consciousness is deemed to be lacking, generally because of a missing subjective report, for example a button press, in response to the stimulus. It will be argued that an organism functioning in accordance with the narrative behavior model would, given its narrative abilities and inabilities, have good reasons for thinking about its own “subjective experience” as something rather astonishing, enigmatic, and non-physical, such that the narrative behavior model could help explain the human tendency for postulating explanatory gaps and hard problems

Shared Brain Mechanisms in Action Selection and Perception
A Model of Selection of Covert and Overt Narrative Behavior
A Heterophenomenological Analysis of Consciousness
Application to Selected Empirical Results
Relation to Some Existing Accounts of Consciousness
Conclusion and Outlook
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