Ray Jackendoff's phenomenology of language as a refutation of the 'appendage' theory of consciousness

1996 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph D. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Direct Part ◽  
Computational Process ◽  
Intentional Objects ◽  
Physical Mechanisms ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
Complex Thought ◽  
Conscious Process ◽  
The Brain

Since Jackendoff has shown that language facilitates abstract and complex thought by making possible subtle manipulations of the focus of attention, and since the kind of attention relevant here is attention to aspects of intentional objects in conscious awareness, it follows that the abstract and complex thinking that language facilitates owes much to the working of a conscious process. This, however, conflicts with Jackendoff's view of consciousness as something which does not play a direct part in thinking, but is only a byproduct of a non-conscious computational process in the brain which does the real thinking. I argue that, since Jackendoff s phenomenology of language shows that attention plays such an important part in thinking, yet language can help us attend only to what we are conscious of consciousness does play an important part in thinking. Moreover, consciousness cannot be merely an epiphenomenal byproduct separable in principle from underlying physical mechanisms, because this would imply that consciousness itself is not physical, which would lead to dualism. But if consciousness is inseparable from its physiological substratum, then it also causes whatever effects the physiological substratum causes.

Plasticity: Cells, Circuits, Brains, and Behavior

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia S. Churchland ◽  
Terrence J. Sejnowski
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Synaptic Plasticity ◽  
Classical Conditioning ◽  
Neuronal Plasticity ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Synaptic Strength ◽  
Physical Mechanisms ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Brain

This chapter examines the physical mechanisms in nervous systems in order to elucidate the structural bases and functional principles of synaptic plasticity. Neuroscientific research on plasticity can be divided into four main streams: the neural mechanism for relatively simple kinds of plasticity, such as classical conditioning or habituation; anatomical and physiological studies of temporal lobe structures, including the hippocampus and the amygdala; study of the development of the visual system; and the relation between the animal's genes and the development of its nervous system. The chapter first considers the role of the mammalian hippocampus in learning and memory before discussing Donald Hebb's views on synaptic plasticity. It then explores the mechanisms underlying neuronal plasticity and those that decrease synaptic strength, the relevance of time with respect to plasticity, and the occurrence of plasticity during the development of the nervous system. It also describes modules, modularity, and networks in the brain.

scholarly journals Masked primes evoke partial responses

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (6) ◽  
pp. 1431-1439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer McBride ◽  
Petroc Sumner ◽  
Masud Husain
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Force Sensing ◽  
Continuous Measure ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Spatial Compatibility ◽  
Motor Activation ◽  
Voltage Change ◽  
Alternative Responses ◽  
The Brain

Backward-masked primes presented outside conscious awareness can affect responses to subsequently presented target stimuli. Differences in response times have been used to infer a pattern of sub-threshold activation and subsequent inhibition of motor plans associated with the primes. However, it is unclear whether competition between alternative responses is fully resolved in the brain or whether activated responses can begin being executed before the final decision to act has been made. Here, we investigate the dynamics of responses evoked by masked primes using a continuous measure – voltage change in force-sensing resistors simultaneously in both hands. Masked primes produced the predicted pattern of motor activation and subsequent inhibition of the primed response. There is no evidence that the effects of masked primes interact with spatial compatibility (e.g., Simon) effects, suggesting separate mechanisms underpinning these effects. Moreover, masked primes evoked partial motor decisions – measurable at the effectors as small amounts of erroneous response – which were usually rapidly corrected. Together, these errors and fast corrections question the ‘sub-threshold’ nature of responses evoked by masked primes and provide important constraints on models of decision-making.

Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 651-676
Author(s):  
David Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Computational Process ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Our understanding of the numerous and significant problems of consciousness is inseparable from the often incommensurable disciplinary frameworks through which the topic has been approached. Music may offer a range of perspectives on consciousness, some issuing from interdisciplinary alliances (such as with cognitive psychology and neuroscience), others tapping into what is distinctively musical about music and what music shares with comparable aesthetic formations. Philosophically speaking, music might afford valuable complementary perspectives to approaches within the empirical sciences that see consciousness as essentially a computational process (Pinker, Dennett), or as solely an epiphenomenon of neural activity within the brain. This chapter will look to experiences of music that support views of the mind as extended and embodied, and that see consciousness as ecologically bound up with Being-in-the-world, to adopt notions from Gibson and Heidegger respectively. In this way, music studies can make a contribution to the philosophical study of consciousness from epistemological, phenomenological, and ontological standpoints.

Shadows in the Brain

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 862-872 ◽  
Author(s):  
Umberto Castiello ◽  
Dean Lusher ◽  
Carol Burton ◽  
Peter Disler
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Shape Perception ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Visual Neglect ◽  
Object Shape ◽  
Brain Injured ◽  
The Right ◽  
Injured Patients ◽  
The Brain

The aims of the present study were to investigate whether the processing of an object shadow occurs implicitly, that is without conscious awareness, and where physically within the human brain shadows are processed. Here we present neurological evidence, obtained from studies of brain-injured patients with visual neglect, that shadows are implicitly processed and that this processing may take place within the temporal lobe. Neglect patients with lesions that do not involve the right temporal lobe were still able to process shadows to optimize object shape perception. In contrast, shadow processing was not found to be as efficient in neglect patients with lesions that involve the right temporal lobe.

scholarly journals Pensamiento Complejo, Bases Para Una Teoria Holistica De La Educacion Superior En El Rediseño Curricular/Complex Thinking, Bases for a Holistic Theory of Higher Education in Curricular Redesign

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Macías ◽  
G Uquillas ◽  
M Aquino ◽  
B Macias
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Holistic Education ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
Complex Thought ◽  
Holistic Theory ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

El objetivo del presente artículo, consiste en realizar una reflexión sobre la perspectiva epistemológica de la complejidad desde las perspectivas de las ciencias. En este sentido, se defiende que un enfoque holístico puede servir de ayuda activa en la enseñanza de la complejidad desde un enfoque crítico y reflexivo amparados en nuevos paradigmas. Después de la relación del pensamiento complejo y la perspectiva holística en el aprendizaje con la dimensión mente que piensa, mente que siente, y mente intuitiva en la educación, trazamos la posibilidad de configurar diseños curriculares de aprendizaje relacionalmente desde la reflexión teórica donde se destaca los nuevos contenidos y asignaturas y la teoría fundamentada en la praxis que radica, en identificar procesos sociales mediante la construcción de teoría a partir de la realidad objetiva. Terminamos formulando desde la perspectiva filosófica y desde la concepción de la realidad se desprende, metódicamente, tres tipos de formaciones profesionales integradas y simultáneas, a partir de las cuales los profesionales en formación adquieren conocimientos, valores y prácticas demostrables transversalmente, durante toda su formación. The objective of the present article consists of the analysis of the new paradigms of the holistic education and its repercussions on higher education defined by the complexity and multidisciplinary. In this sense it is argued that a holistic approach can serve as an active help in the teaching of complexity from a critical and reflexive approach supported by new paradigms. After the relation complex thought and the holistic perspective in learning with the dimension thinking mind, feeling mind and intuitive mind in education, we design the possibility of figuring out learning curricular designs rationally from the theoretical reflection where the new contents and subject matters are outstanding as well as the theory based on the praxis which leads to identify social processes through the construction of theory from objective reality. We conclude by formulating from the philosophical perspective and the reality conception methodically three types of integrated and simultaneous professional formations from which professionals in formation acquire knowledge, cross demonstrable practices and values during all their formation. Palabras claves: Pensamiento complejo, educación holística, cerebro triuno afecto, rediseño curricular. Keywords: Complex thought, holistic education, triune brain, curricular redesign.

scholarly journals Depression, Brain Glucose Metabolism and Consciousness

1969 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Alice Ornellas Pereira ◽  
Alfredo Pereira Jr ◽  
Gene Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Glucose Consumption ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Atp Production ◽  
Explanatory Hypothesis ◽  
Treatment Of Depression ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Conscious Process ◽  
Resistance To Insulin ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Positive Results

A correlation between depression and resistance to insulin was recently discovered. How to conciliate this finding with the fact that glucose transport to neurons is not made directly by insulin? We present an explanatory hypothesis based on a mechanism of dynamical glucose balance in the brain that includes lactate transport from astrocytes to neuronal mitochondria supporting ATP (and then cAMP) production. The depressed brain has defective ATP production, possibly leading in several cases to excessive glucose consumption without increasing neuronal ATP levels. This hypothesis can help to explain the surprisingly positive results found in the treatment of depression with aromatherapy. Some odors like citrus fragrances possibly fool the brain’s glucose level sensors, reducing the subjective feeling of "low energy". Could a conscious process trigger a reaction against the underlying causes of depression?

Introduction to the Nervous System

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy Mason
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
System P ◽  
Brainstem Stroke ◽  
Primary Deficit ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
The Brain

The primary regions and principal functions of the central nervous system are introduced through the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby who became locked in after suffering a brainstem stroke. Bauby blinked out his story of locked-in syndrome one letter at a time. The primary deficit of locked-in syndrome is in voluntary movement because pathways from the brain to motoneurons in the brainstem and spinal cord are interrupted. Perception is also disturbed as pathways responsible for transforming sensory stimuli into conscious awareness are interrupted as they ascend through the brainstem into the forebrain. Homeostasis, through which the brain keeps the body alive, is also adversely affected in locked-in syndrome because it depends on the brain, spinal cord and autonomic nervous system. Abstract functions such as memory, language, and emotion depend fully on the forebrain and are intact in locked-in syndrome, as clearly evidenced by Bauby’s eloquent words.

scholarly journals Refinements in the Organism as a Whole Rationale for Brain Death

2019 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Bernat
Keyword(s):  
Brain Death ◽  
Theoretical Biology ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Control Of Respiration ◽  
Biological Models ◽  
Whole Brain ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Brain

Death can be defined as the permanent cessation of the organism as a whole. Although the organism as a whole is a century-old concept, it remains better intuited than analyzed. Recent concepts in theoretical biology including hierarchies of organization, emergent functions, and mereology have informed the idea that the organism as a whole is the organism’s critical emergent functions. Because the brain conducts the critical emergent functions including conscious awareness and control of respiration and circulation, the cessation of brain functions is death of the organism. A newer concept, the brain as a whole, may offer a superior criterion of death to the whole-brain criterion, because it more closely matches accepted clinical brain death tests and confirms the cessation of the organism’s emergent functions. Although the concepts of organism as a whole and brain as a whole remain vague and in need of rigorous biophilosophical analysis, their future precision will be restricted by the categorical limitations intrinsic to theoretical biological models.

scholarly journals Perceptual integration without conscious access

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes J. Fahrenfort ◽  
Jonathan van Leeuwen ◽  
Christian N.L. Olivers ◽  
Hinze Hogendoorn
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Visual Environment ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Perceptual Integration ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Neural Signature ◽  
Electroencephalogram Eeg ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe visual system has the remarkable ability to integrate fragmentary visual input into a perceptually organized collection of surfaces and objects, a process we refer to as perceptual integration. Despite a long tradition of perception research, it is not known whether access to consciousness is required to complete perceptual integration. To investigate this question, we manipulated access to consciousness using the attentional blink. We show that behaviorally, the attentional blink impairs perceptual decisions about the presence of integrated surface structure from fragmented input. However, when applying a multivariate classifier to electroencephalogram (EEG) data, the ability to decode the presence of integrated percepts remains intact when conscious access is impaired. In contrast, when disrupting consciousness through masking, decisions about integrated percepts and decoding of integrated percepts are impaired in concert with each other, while leaving feedforward representations intact. Together, these data show a dissociation between access to consciousness and perceptual integration.Significance statementOur brain constantly selects salient and/or goal-relevant objects from the visual environment, so that it can operate on neural representations of these objects. But what is the fate of objects that are not selected? Are these discarded, so that the brain only has an impoverished non-perceptual representation of them? Or does the brain construct perceptually rich representations, even when objects are not consciously accessed by our cognitive system? Here we answer that question by manipulating the information that enters into awareness, while simultaneously measuring cortical activity using EEG. We show that objects that do not enter consciousness can nevertheless have a neural signature that is indistinguishable from perceptually rich representations that occur for objects that do enter into conscious awareness.

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