Consciousness: a neural capacity for objectivity, especially pronounced in humans

Anton J M Dijker

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00223

Abstract

Consciousness tends to be viewed either as subjective experience of sensations and feelings, or as perception and internal representation of objects. This paper argues that neither view sufficiently acknowledges that consciousness may refer to the brain’s most adaptive property: its capacity to produce states of objectivity. It is proposed that this capacity relies on multiple sensorimotor networks for internally representing objects and their properties in terms of expectancies, as well as on motivational and motor mechanisms involved in exploration, play, and care for vulnerable living and non-living objects. States of objectivity are associated with a very special phenomenal aspect; the experience that subjective aspects are absent and one is “just looking” at the world as it really is and can be. However, these states are normally closely preceded and followed by (and tend to be combined or fused with) sensations and feelings which are caused by activation of sensory and motivational mechanisms. A capacity for objectivity may have evolved in different species and can be conceived as a common basis for other elusive psychological properties such as intelligence, conscience, and esthetic experience; all three linked to crucial behaviors in human evolution such as tool making, cooperation, and art. The brain’s pervasive tendency to objectify may be responsible for wrongly equating consciousness with feelings and wrongly opposing it to well-learned or habitual (“unconscious”) patterns of perception and behavior.

Highlights

Consciousness tends to be seen as one of the most important and adaptive, and most elusive properties that brains can ever acquire
This paper argues that its elusiveness in large part is due to a failure to clearly distinguish and characterize the two main aspects that are usually associated with consciousness; on the one hand, feelings, sensations, and experiences, on the other, perception and internal representation of objects and their properties
How a capacity for objectivity is related to intelligence, conscience, and esthetic experience, and contributes to human uniqueness is described in two subsequent sections

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Consciousness tends to be seen as one of the most important and adaptive, and most elusive properties that brains can ever acquire. The answer proposed here is: a capacity for objectivity, to be defined as the capacity to produce states of objectivity that internally represent objects and their dispositional properties (as well as movements and behaviors predicted by these dispositions) in relatively stable, accurate, increasingly complete, perceiverindependent and neutral ways, unbiased by specific needs, motives, and anticipation of instrumental aspects and rewards These states or moments, are normally preceded and followed by (and tend to be combined or fused with) sensations and feelings with phenomenal or experiential aspects which are caused by activation of sensory and motivational mechanisms. How a capacity for objectivity is related to intelligence, conscience, and esthetic experience, and contributes to human uniqueness is described in two subsequent sections

SEARCHING FOR THE PROXIMATE MECHANISMS UNDERLYING STATES OF OBJECTIVITY

CONCLUSION