How uniquely irreducible is consciousness? Defining the limits of biological reductionism: A commentary on Neuroontology, neurobiological naturalism, and consciousness: A challenge to scientific reduction and a solution, by Todd E. Feinberg, MD

Abstract

In this important and thought-provoking review, the author takes up what is certainly the central challenge to thescientific study of consciousness: namely, the apparent irreducibility of core aspects of subjective experience. Theauthor rightly identifies four core features of consciousness that defy attempts at reduction: the referral of mentalstates, mental unity (taken here to be the same as ‘perceptual unity’), qualia, and mental causation [1, this issue].For the sake of this commentary, I will consider an overarching claim made in the target review about the nature ofreduction in biological systems generally.In framing the problem of irreducibility in the study of consciousness, the author begins with the observation thatall biological systems are hierarchically organized. In such hierarchical systems, certain novel properties are emergentat the highest levels of organization (i.e., properties that differ markedly from the features that collectively generatethem); at the same time, high-level components