Abstract
In Being No One, Metzinger (2004[2003]) introduces an approach to the scientific study of consciousness that draws on theories and results from different disciplines, targeted at multiple levels of analysis. Descriptions and assumptions formulated at, for instance, the phenomenological, representationalist, and neurobiological levels of analysis provide different perspectives on the same phenomenon, which can ultimately yield necessary and sufficient conditions for applying the concept of phenomenal representation. In this way, the “method of interdisciplinary constraint satisfaction (MICS)” (as it has been called by Weisberg, 2005) promotes our understanding of consciousness. However, even more than a decade after the first publication of Being No One, we still lack a mature science of consciousness. This paper makes the following meta-theoretical contribution: It analyzes the hurdles an approach such as MICS has yet to overcome and discusses to what extent existing approaches solve the problems left open by MICS. Furthermore, it argues that a unifying theory of different features of consciousness is required to reach a mature science of consciousness.
Highlights
How far away is the science of consciousness from reaching a paradigmatic stage? One could argue that the science of consciousness is paradigmatic in the sense that we have well established sets of study paradigms, such as binocular rivalry, backward masking, continuous flash suppression, and many others
The question “What is consciousness?” can be interpreted in at least two ways: (1) It can be understood as a question that asks for the explanandum, which defines the target for the scientific study of consciousness
In Yoshimi’s words, this means that “the neural category structure predicts a phenomenological category structure” (Yoshimi, 2011, p. 11). Another way of putting it is that some dynamical features of conscious experience can be explained in terms of their neural underpinnings, because the latter share the same dynamical features. This aspect of the giga-bingo approach, as exemplified by Yoshimi’s account, has the potential to solve the problem of matching predicates with respect to dynamical features: if a supervenience function between brain space and conscious space exists, we can predict features of conscious space by investigating brain space; we can understand features of conscious states if the same features are shared by their neural correlates in brain space
Summary
How far away is the science of consciousness from reaching a paradigmatic stage? One could argue that the science of consciousness is paradigmatic in the sense that we have well established sets of study paradigms, such as binocular rivalry, backward masking, continuous flash suppression, and many others. Normal puzzle-solving research requires a consensus on what the relevant scientific puzzles are and how they can be solved (at least in principle) This suggests that the science of consciousness has not reached a mature stage yet (in Kuhn’s sense), even if some scientific endeavors within the study of consciousness can be regarded as paradigmatic. The core idea is this: A mature science of consciousness needs a well-defined target, picked out by a concept of consciousness that is noncontroversial (because “consciousness” is not a technical term) and applies to at least most subjects of experience in ordinary states. Such a concept must involve characteristic (perhaps necessary) features of consciousness. I will argue that this will require an integrated account of different features, for instance, in terms of a single underlying computational principle (such as minimizing expected free energy, see Friston, 2018)
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