Ontology Of Consciousness Research Articles

Non-classical Intentionality: An Existential View

This paper compares the ideas of intentionality and ‘pure Self ’ in the phenomenological and existential traditions. The purpose of the research is to compare and identify the meaning of these categories that is different from the phenomenological approach. While phenomenology was conceived as an epistemological program, the existential view represented in the paper by Nikolai Berdyaev shows the negative ontological consequences to which it leads. For example, the idea of intentionality (the direction of consciousness toward an object) can lead to the elimination of subject from the life picture of the world, whereas the idea of a ‘transcendental Self ’ leads to the justification of the lack of content in consciousness. Therefore, there is a conflict between these philosophical approaches. The topicality of the problem under study is due to identification of details and specific features of this conflict. The goal of phenomenology is purification of consciousness from subjective premises for achieving objective cognition. The goal of existentialism is the formation of existence of the subject, the actualization of his/her immanent freedom. Thus, the existential approach broadens the ideas on the nature of the consciousness orientation, which can be directed not only toward the phenomenal world, but also to the transcendental one. The scientific value of this study is due to the reconstruction of the existential approach concerning the issue of the direction of consciousness and the ‘pure Self ’ using the example of Berdyaev’s philosophy, as well as the possibility of creating ‘ontology of consciousness’ based on his philosophy. The article is based on the method of theoretical reconstruction and conceptual analysis of the arguments put forward by E. Husserl and N. A. Berdyaev, as well as numerous researchers of their work. The methodological basis of this work is a philosophical reconstruction and a comparative approach. The scientific significance of the research is justifying that the existential approach to ‘intentionality’ does not deny the phenomenological approach but enlarge it adding ontological content in this notion.

The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness.

Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem. This article surveys the threat each problem poses to IIT based on the different metaphysical commitments IIT theorists might make. Distinctions are made between what I call reductive IIT, non-reductive IIT, and non-physicalist IIT, each of which make differing metaphysical commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and nature of causation. Subsequently, each problem pertaining to mental causation is presented and its threat, or lack thereof, to each version of IIT is considered. While the lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening for all versions, reductive IIT and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining a commitment to the causal closure principle. Yet, non-physicalist IIT denies the principle but is therefore threatened by the pairing problem, to which I have elsewhere provided a response that is briefly outlined here. This problem also threatens non-reductive IIT, but unlike non-physicalist IIT it lacks an evident response. The ultimate aim of this survey is to provide a roadmap for IIT theorists through the maze of mental causation, by clarifying which commitments lead to which problems, and how they might or might not be overcome. Such a survey can aid IIT theorists as they further develop and hone the metaphysical commitments of IIT.

“Ontologization of Consciousness” in N.A. Berdyaev's Philosophy

The relevance of investigated problem due to the emergence of the prerequisites in the modern discourse for the elimination of the "I-subject" from the life world. The presence of "I-subject" as the bearer of free will is questioned. The answer to this challenge may be a justification for the existence of the "I-entity". It shows the possibility of "ontologization of consciousness" based on the example of N.A. Berdyaev’s philosophy, that is, gaining awareness of their authentic self, the becoming of existence "I-entity" that preserves the freedom of the will. Various ways of the «ontologization of consciousness» are considered: through “trancendential reduction”, culture, creativity and spiritual life. It’s concluded that it’s impossibly to «ontologize consciousness» through “trancendential reduction” and culture. The possibility of partial «ontologization» through creativity is allowed. «Ontologization of consciousness» is achieved in the spiritual life. The catalyst of which is the existential experience of loneliness and despair.The article may be useful in research in the field of Russian religious, existential philosophy and ontology of consciousness.

Онтологическая система С.Л. Франка

S.L. Frank’s ontological system can be actualized in modern philosophical dis­course as an example of a dynamic, permanently developing philosophy, and can be interpreted and later developed as an ontology of consciousness, an ontology of culture. S.L. Frank believed that man is not conceivable without culture, com­posing an antinomy with culture. In the modern world, in which the value of cul­ture is devalued, the ontology of culture can serve as one of the reasons for the controversy surrounding its axiological status. The purpose of the article is a summary of the ontology of S.L. Frank, the identification of its central core, as well as its genesis. The critical and hermeneutic approaches are the research methodology. Ontology S.L. Frank is invited to consider in the antinomical form of her comprehension: the antinomy of being and God includes the antinomies of consciousness and culture, as well as freedom and evil. The source of the on­tological system is the problem of the crisis of culture. The ontologization of cul­ture is possible with the ontologization of the second part of the antinomy – con­sciousness, which is included (ontologized) into the antinomy “being and God” by changing the structure of the intentional act. The antinomy freedom and evil substantiates the idea that there is nothing existing outside the antinomy of being and God. It is concluded that, trying to solve the problem of evil, as well as to put a limit on the decay of being, SL Frank is trying to prevent the disintegration of God. The article may be useful in modern studies in the history of Russian re­ligious philosophy and ontology.

The Easy Part of the Hard Problem: A Resonance Theory of Consciousness.

Synchronization, harmonization, vibrations, or simply resonance in its most general sense seems to have an integral relationship with consciousness itself. One of the possible “neural correlates of consciousness” in mammalian brains is a specific combination of gamma, beta and theta electrical synchrony. More broadly, we see similar kinds of resonance patterns in living and non-living structures of many types. What clues can resonance provide about the nature of consciousness more generally? This paper provides an overview of resonating structures in the fields of neuroscience, biology and physics and offers a possible solution to what we see as the “easy part” of the “Hard Problem” of consciousness, which is generally known as the “combination problem.” The combination problem asks: how do micro-conscious entities combine into a higher-level macro-consciousness? The proposed solution in the context of mammalian consciousness suggests that a shared resonance is what allows different parts of the brain to achieve a phase transition in the speed and bandwidth of information flows between the constituent parts. This phase transition allows for richer varieties of consciousness to arise, with the character and content of that consciousness in each moment determined by the particular set of constituent neurons. We also offer more general insights into the ontology of consciousness and suggest that consciousness manifests as a continuum of increasing richness in all physical processes, distinguishing our view from emergentist materialism. We refer to this approach, a meta-synthesis, as a (general) resonance theory of consciousness. We offer some suggestions for testing the theory.

The Informational Fallacy in the Philosophy of Consciousness

This article argues that theories which regard the mind as merely a form of information processing are guilty of a fallacious conflation of the informational contents of consciousness with consciousness itself, with the consciousness of those contents. Such theories lie behind the thought that a consciousness could be transferred or uploaded onto a substrate other than the brain it initially occurred in. It is argued here that the ontology of information is that of a formal structure that can be instantiated in physical reality innumerable times, whereas the ontology of consciousness is that of an irreducibly singular subjective experience of being alive.

A History of the Locked-In-Syndrome: Ethics in the Making of Neurological Consciousness, 1880-Present

Extensive scholarship has described the historical and ethical imperatives shaping the emergence of the brain death criteria in the 1960s and 1970s. This essay explores the longer intellectual history that shaped theories of neurological consciousness from the late-nineteenth century to that period, and argues that a significant transformation occurred in the elaboration of those theories in the 1960s and after, the period when various disturbances of consciousness were discovered or thoroughly elaborated. Numerous historical conditions can be identified and attributed to the production of the new theories that emerged from that period-on, not least in the broader social and cultural transformations that occurred with decolonialization, pro-democracy movements, and civil and disability rights advocacy, all contexts which exerted pressures on the institutions and professions of medicine. In this telling, the discovery of the locked-in patient is thus the exploration of a transformed vision of medical patients – one that moved them from a liminal indefinite space into a firmly grounded epistemological existence – in a backdrop in which medical professionals in particular and society in general was beginning to see the body differently. With this new vision, came a relational theory of consciousness to, a reading of a body and it signs, that shifted consciousness from an internally-derived state into a relationally-constructed object. The ontology of consciousness, whatever it was, thereby became entangled with the social condition of consciousness, one that bridged the worlds of close relationship with the social movements and anxieties about personhood that emanated out of that fraught period.

Grounding, conceivability, and the mind-body problem

This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceivability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths (cf. Chalmers in The conscious mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996; The character of consciousness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) in light of a hyperintensional regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability—i.e., the epistemic possibility—thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined.

The Contents of Consciousness: Reply to Hellie, Peacocke and Siegel

I would like to thank Benj Hellie, Chris Peacocke, and Susanna Siegel for their very interesting commentaries on The Character of Consciousness. All of them focus mainly on issues from the second half of the book, especially issues concerning the contents of consciousness. Hellie focuses especially on the role of acquaintance and perceptual attention in perception and introspection and on the ontology of consciousness. Peacocke focuses especially on my Fregean account of the content of spatial experience. Siegel focuses especially on my account of the Edenic content of perception and its relation to Fregean content. I will reply to the three commentaries in alphabetical order. Each of the commentaries raises many issues, and space precludes me from replying in detail on each issue. Instead, in each part I concentrate especially on a single central issue: acquaintance with phenomenal states for Hellie, spatial externalism for Peacocke, perceptual Frege cases for Siegel. I aim to discuss the central issue in depth and then discuss other issues more briefly. I have tried to start each section with a relatively accessible discussion of the central issue that does not presuppose much knowledge of my book or of the commentaries.1

Sprigge's Ontology of Consciousness

AbstractTimothy Sprigge advanced an original synthesis of panpsychism and absolute idealism. He argued that consciousness is an irreducible, subjective reality that is only grasped by an introspective, phenomenological approach and constructed his ontology from what is revealed in the phenomenology. In defending the unique place of metaphysics in the pursuit of truth, he claimed that scientific investigation can never discover the essence of consciousness since it can only provide descriptions of structure and function in what we normally think of as physical existence. In this paper I present a critical evaluation of Sprigge's view focusing in particular on his conception of the nature of scientific inquiry vis-à-vis the ambitious project of his metaphysics. I argue that a naturalistic metaphysics provides a more adequate approach to the relation between science and metaphysics.

Ontology of consciousness: percipient action

The hard problem of today's consciousness studies is subjective experience: understanding why some brain processing is accompanied by an experienced inner life. Recent scientific advances offer insights for understanding the physiological and chemical phenomenology of consciousness. But by leaving aside the internal experiential nature of consciousness in favor of mapping neural activity, such science leaves many questions unanswered. In Ontology of Consciousness, scholars from a range of disciplines -- from neurophysiology to parapsychology, from mathematics to anthropology and indigenous non-Western modes of thought -- go beyond these limits of current neuroscience research to explore insights offered by other intellectual approaches to consciousness. These scholars focus their attention on such philosophical approaches to consciousness as Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, North American Indian insights, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization, and the Byzantine Empire. Some draw on artifacts and ethnographic data to make their point. Others translate cultural concepts of consciousness into modern scientific language using models and mathematical mappings. Many consider individual experiences of sentience and existence, as seen in African communalism, Hindi psychology, Zen Buddhism, Indian vibhuti phenomena, existentialism, philosophical realism, and modern psychiatry. Some reveal current views and conundrums in neurobiology to comprehend sentient intellection. Contributors: Karim Akerma, Matthijs Cornelissen, Antoine Courban, Mario Crocco, Christian de Quincey, Thomas B. Fowler, Erlendur Haraldsson, David. J. Hufford, Pavel B. Ivanov, Heinz Kimmerle, Stanley Krippner, Armand J. Labbe, James Maffie, Hubert Markl, Graham Parkes, Michael Polemis, E Richard Sorenson, Mircea Steriade, Thomas Szasz, Mariela Szirko, Robert A.F. Thurman, Edith L.B. Turner, Julia Watkin, Helmut Wautischer

The ontology of creature consciousness: A challenge for philosophy

I appeal to Merker's theory to motivate a hypothesis about the ontology of consciousness: Creature consciousness is (at least partially) constitutive of phenomenal consciousness. Rather than elaborating theories of phenomenal consciousness couched solely in terms of state consciousness, as philosophers are fond of doing, a correct approach to phenomenal consciousness should begin with an account of creature consciousness.

Producing mind

Those who support a computationalist view of the mind tend to hold that it must apply to all aspects of mentality. This view is called computational universalism. An apparently opposed perception-phenomenal universalism-is that consciousness is at the root of all mental processes. Computationalists tend to cognitivize, or otherwise play down, phenomenal consciousness. The recent book by David Chalmers proposes one way to take both computation and phenomenal consciousness seriously. A different way is explored here, which avoids the commitment to a non-materialist ontology of consciousness in Chalmers' position. This alternative approach rejects universalism of both the computational and the phenomenal kinds. Instead a pluralistic view of mind is proposed. Cognitive and phenomenal aspects of mind are to be taken as equally fundamental and as complementary. Cognitive or productive aspects of mind have their own kind of reality which is independent of consciousness. Semantic content may well result from the combination of cognitive productivity and consciousness. The view proposed offers solutions to old problems affecting computational accounts.

The “Multiple Drafts” model and the ontology of consciousness

The “Multiple Drafts” model and the ontology of consciousness

Merleau-Ponty and the transcendence of immanence: Overcoming the ontology of consciousness

Merleau-Ponty and the transcendence of immanence: Overcoming the ontology of consciousness