Chapter 41 - From brain to consciousness—“common currency hypothesis”

Abstract

Consciousness is not only an empirical subject matter in neuroscience but is also extensively discussed on more theoretical grounds in philosophy of mind. We here want to point out one important theoretical presupposition in the current neuroscience of consciousness. Originating and carried over from philosophy, most neuroscientific theories assume that consciousness is special by itself for which reason we need to assume an analogously special neuronal mechanism. This is indeed the case as special neuronal mechanisms like information integration and global neuronal workspace (and others) are for instance assume in both IIT and GNWT. In contrast, one may also assume that consciousness is nonspecial which entails the search for some most basic features shared by brain and consciousness. This leads us to temporospatial dynamic as nonspecial mechanism of consciousness as it is explicated in the four temporospatial mechanisms of the temporospatial theory of consciousness (TTC). Being mediated by nonspecial neuronal mechanisms, the TTC entails that spatial-topographic and temporal-dynamic features are shared by both brain and consciousness as their “common currency.” We subsequently develop the “common currency hypothesis” (CCH) of brain and consciousness. Together, we here propose an alternative view of consciousness, namely that it and its underlying neuronal mechanisms are nonspecial compared to and thus shared by both nonconsciousness and brain in general as their “common currency.”