Human consciousness as a tractable scientific problem

lukeprog

I encounter many intelligent people (not usually LWers, though) who say that despite our recent scientific advances, human consciousness remains a mystery and currently intractable to science. This is wrong. Empirically distinguishable theories of consciousness have been around for at least 15 years, and the data are beginning to favor some theories over others. For a recent example, see this August 2011 article from Lau & Rosenthal in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, one of my favorite journals. (Review articles, yay!)

Abstract:

Higher-order theories of consciousness argue that conscious awareness crucially depends on higher-order mental representations that represent oneself as being in particular mental states. These theories have featured prominently in recent debates on conscious awareness. We provide new leverage on these debates by reviewing the empirical evidence in support of the higher-order view. We focus on evidence that distinguishes the higher-order view from its alternatives, such as the first-order, global workspace and recurrent visual processing theories. We defend the higher-order view against several major criticisms, such as prefrontal activity reflects attention but not awareness, and prefrontal lesion does not abolish awareness. Although the higher-order approach originated in philosophical discussions, we show that it is testable and has received substantial empirical support.

Abstract:

Higher-order theories of consciousness argue that conscious awareness crucially depends on higher-order mental representations that represent oneself as being in particular mental states. These theories have featured prominently in recent debates on conscious awareness. We provide new leverage on these debates by reviewing the empirical evidence in support of the higher-order view. We focus on evidence that distinguishes the higher-order view from its alternatives, such as the first-order, global workspace and recurrent visual processing theories. We defend the higher-order view against several major criticisms, such as prefrontal activity reflects attention but not awareness, and prefrontal lesion does not abolish awareness. Although the higher-order approach originated in philosophical discussions, we show that it is testable and has received substantial empirical support.

Do you know how to distinguish "actually feeling pain" from "acting as if" it feels pain?

Well, I suppose you'd do it the same way you'd distinguish "actually has a cat in a box" from "pretending to have a cat in a box" (without checking the box).

I do think there's something weird going on with consciousness - why there is something that thinks it has the experience of having thoughts and experiences is as yet unexplained, and is tricky to talk about given the inability to directly access the subject matter - but I imagine it's in principle explicable.

And saying we need to find a "mysterious" way of understanding it... well, there are all sorts of reasons why that's not going to work.

Well, I suppose you'd do it the same way you'd distinguish "actually has a cat in a box" from "pretending to have a cat in a box" (without checking the box).

If there is no way to check the content of the box, ever, in any conceivable way, then there is no difference, period.

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Human consciousness as a tractable scientific problem

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Human consciousness as a tractable scientific problem

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