scholarly journals Facing up to the hard question of consciousness

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Dennett
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Sound Theory ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
The Hard Problem

The so-called hard problem of consciousness is a chimera, a distraction from the hard question of consciousness, which is once some content reaches consciousness, ‘then what happens?’. This question is seldom properly asked, for reasons good and bad, but when asked it opens up avenues of research that promise to dissolve the hard problem and secure a scientifically sound theory of how the human brain produces the (sometimes illusory) convictions that mislead us. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.

scholarly journals Challenges for theories of consciousness: seeing or knowing, the missing ingredient and how to deal with panpsychism

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor A. F. Lamme
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Visual Consciousness ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Made In

Significant progress has been made in the study of consciousness. Promising theories have been developed and a wealth of experimental data has been generated, both guiding us towards a better understanding of this complex phenomenon. However, new challenges have surfaced. Is visual consciousness about the seeing or the knowing that you see? Controversy about whether the conscious experience is better explained by theories that focus on phenomenal (P-consciousness) or cognitive aspects (A-consciousness) remains, and the debate seems to reach a stalemate. Can we ever resolve this? A further challenge is that many theories of consciousness seem to endorse high degrees of panpsychism—the notion that all beings or even lifeless objects have conscious experience. Should we accept this, or does it imply that these theories require further ingredients that would put a lower bound on beings or devices that have conscious experience? If so, what could these ‘missing ingredients’ be? These challenges are discussed, and potential solutions are offered. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

scholarly journals Consciousness without report: insights from summary statistics and inattention ‘blindness’

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Usher ◽  
Zohar Z. Bronfman ◽  
Shiri Talmor ◽  
Hilla Jacobson ◽  
Baruch Eitam
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Awareness ◽  
Simple Relation ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Summary Statistics ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Cognitive Access

We contrast two theoretical positions on the relation between phenomenal and access consciousness. First, we discuss previous data supporting a mild Overflow position, according to which transient visual awareness can overflow report. These data are open to two interpretations: (i) observers transiently experience specific visual elements outside attentional focus without encoding them into working memory; (ii) no specific visual elements but only statistical summaries are experienced in such conditions. We present new data showing that under data-limited conditions observers cannot discriminate a simple relation (same versus different) without discriminating the elements themselves and, based on additional computational considerations, we argue that this supports the first interpretation: summary statistics (same/different) are grounded on the transient experience of elements. Second, we examine recent data from a variant of ‘inattention blindness’ and argue that contrary to widespread assumptions, it provides further support for Overflow by highlighting another factor, ‘task relevance’, which affects the ability to conceptualize and report (but not experience) visual elements. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

scholarly journals The methodological puzzle of phenomenal consciousness

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Natural Kind ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Negative Answer ◽  
Partial Report ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Theoretical Proposal

Is phenomenal consciousness constitutively related to cognitive access? Despite being a fundamental issue for any science of consciousness, its empirical study faces a severe methodological puzzle. Recent years have seen numerous attempts to address this puzzle, either in practice, by offering evidence for a positive or negative answer, or in principle, by proposing a framework for eventual resolution. The present paper critically considers these endeavours, including partial-report, metacognitive and no-report paradigms, as well as the theoretical proposal that we can make progress by studying phenomenal consciousness as a natural kind. It is argued that the methodological puzzle remains obdurately with us and that, for now, we must adopt an attitude of humility towards the phenomenal. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

scholarly journals Not so Hard Problem: Francisco Varela on the Relations between Consciousness, Nature and Life

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-159
Author(s):  
M. D. Miroshnichenko
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Structure ◽  
Living System ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Late Period ◽  
Main Criterion ◽  
Autopoietic Systems ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
Autopoietic Organization ◽  
Structure Of Knowledge

The author reconstructs the theory of F. Varela with relevance to the hard problem of consciousness. This problem was touched by Varela in relatively late period of his work. However, the implications for dissolution of this problem can be found in his earlier works with H. Maturana. Theory of autopoietic systems ties life and cognition together, resulting in natural historical comprehension of consciousness and its functioning. Autopoiesis, understood as network of processes of production of components used as resources for maintaining these processes, sets organizational invariances, distinguishing living system from its milieu. The main criterion of living system is an ability to maintain autopoietic organization while undergoing structural transformations with environment. Structural plasticity leads to multiple realizability of autopoietic organizations, which, in turn, leads to radical conclusion on nature of knowledge. One can distinguish the knower and the known only contingently, as the structure of knowledge reflects cognitive structure of the knower. This intertwinement permits Varela to introduce the enactivist program, which presupposes not simply reform in the scientific research of consciousness but also rethinking the implications of scientific knowledge itself. Cognition is a sensorimotor constitution of the world. Therefore, consciousness is not an object of material nature among other objects but provides our cognitive access to nature. Varela intended to abandon the theoretical approach to the problem of consciousness. His aim was not to provide a new argument. This is a consequence of the enactivist position which, according to theory of autopoiesis, must be applicable to the knower himself.

scholarly journals Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access from the perspective of capacity-unlimited working memory

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Gross
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Representational Capacity ◽  
The Rich

Theories of consciousness divide over whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse in specific representational content and whether it requires cognitive access. These two issues are often treated in tandem because of a shared assumption that the representational capacity of cognitive access is fairly limited. Recent research on working memory challenges this shared assumption. This paper argues that abandoning the assumption undermines post-cue–based ‘overflow’ arguments, according to which perceptual consciousness is rich and does not require cognitive access. Abandoning it also dissociates the rich/sparse debate from the access question. The paper then explores attempts to reformulate overflow theses in ways that do not require the assumption of limited capacity. Finally, it discusses the problem of relating seemingly non-probabilistic perceptual consciousness to the probabilistic representations posited by the models that challenge conceptions of cognitive access as capacity-limited. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.

scholarly journals Partial report is the wrong paradigm

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170350 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Stazicker
Keyword(s):  
Standard Model ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Partial Report ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Information Processes ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Evidential Support ◽  
Independence Hypothesis

Is consciousness independent of the general-purpose information processes known as ‘cognitive access’? The dominant methodology for supporting this independence hypothesis appeals to partial report experiments as evidence for perceptual consciousness in the absence of cognitive access. Using a standard model of evidential support, and reviewing recent elaborations of the partial report paradigm, this article argues that the paradigm has the wrong structure to support the independence hypothesis. Like reports in general, a subject's partial report is evidence that she is conscious of information only where that information is cognitively accessed. So, partial report experiments could dissociate consciousness from cognitive access only if there were uncontroversial evidence for consciousness that did not imply reportability. There is no such evidence. An alternative, broadly Marrian methodology for supporting the independence hypothesis is suggested, and some challenges to it outlined. This methodology does not require experimental evidence for consciousness in the absence of cognitive access. Instead, it focuses on a function of perceptual consciousness when a stimulus is cognitively accessed. If the processes best suited to implement this function exclude cognitive access, the independence hypothesis will be supported. One relevant function of consciousness may be reflected in reason-based psychological explanations of a subject's behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

scholarly journals Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access: an introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Fazekas ◽  
Morten Overgaard
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Novel Approaches ◽  
Access Mechanisms

The problem of perceptual consciousness—the question of how our subjective experiences (colours as we see them; sounds as we hear them; tastes, etc., as we feel them) could be accounted for in terms of brain processes—is often regarded as the greatest unsolved mystery of our times. In recent literature, one of the most pressing questions in this regard is whether the neural basis of perceptual consciousness is independent of the neural basis of cognitive access mechanisms that make reporting and reflecting on conscious experiences possible. The Theme Issue focuses on this central problem of consciousness research and aims to contribute to the field by critically discussing state-of-the-art empirical findings, identifying methodological problems and proposing novel approaches. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

scholarly journals Why and how access consciousness can account for phenomenal consciousness

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel Naccache
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Belief Attribution ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Global Workspace ◽  
Subjective Reports ◽  
Ned Block

According to a popular distinction proposed by the philosopher Ned Block in 1995, our conscious experience would overflow the very limited set of what we can consciously report to ourselves and to others. He proposed to coin this limited consciousness ‘Access Consciousness' (A-Cs) and to define ‘Phenomenal Consciousness’ as a much richer subjective experience that is not accessed but that would still delineate the extent of consciousness. In this article, I review and develop five major problems raised by this theory, and show how a strict A-Cs theory can account for our conscious experience. I illustrate such an A-Cs account within the global workspace (GW) theoretical framework, and revisit some seminal empirical findings and neuropsychological syndromes. In this strict A-Cs perspective, subjective reports are not conceived as the mere passive broadcasting of information to the GW, but as resulting from a dynamic and active chain of internal processes that notably include interpretative and belief attribution stages. Finally, I list a set of testable predictions, of unsolved questions and of some counterintuitive hypotheses. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

scholarly journals If perception is probabilistic, why does it not seem probabilistic?

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ned Block
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Motion ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Probabilistic Representation ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Standard Solution ◽  
Probabilistic Point ◽  
Full Probability

The success of the Bayesian perspective in explaining perceptual phenomena has motivated the view that perceptual representation is probabilistic. But if perceptual representation is probabilistic, why does normal conscious perception not reflect the full probability functions that the probabilistic point of view endorses? For example, neurons in cortical area MT that respond to the direction of motion are broadly tuned: a patch of cortex that is tuned to vertical motion also responds to horizontal motion, but when we see vertical motion, foveally, in good conditions, it does not look at all horizontal. The standard solution in terms of sampling runs into the problem that sampling is an account of perceptual decision rather than perception. This paper argues that the best Bayesian approach to this problem does not require probabilistic representation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.

scholarly journals Dream experiences and the neural correlates of perceptual consciousness and cognitive access

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1755) ◽  
pp. 20170356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Fazekas ◽  
Georgina Nemeth
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Rapid Eye Movement Sleep ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Cognitive Access ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Hot Zone

This paper approaches the debate whether perceptual consciousness requires cognitive access from the perspective of dream studies, and investigates what kind of findings could support the opposing views of this debate. Two kinds of arguments are discussed, one that claims that the hypoactivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in rapid eye movement sleep is directly relevant, and another that proposes that locating the neural correlates of dream experiences can indirectly inform the debate. It is argued that under closer reflection, neither the classical claim about dorsolateral prefrontal cortex hypoactivity nor the more recent emphasis on general posterior hot zone activity during dreaming stand up to scrutiny. White dreaming is identified as the phenomenon that, nevertheless, holds the most promise to have an impact on the debate. Going beyond the topic if studying dreams can contribute to this debate, it is argued that cognitive access is not a monolithic phenomenon, and its neural correlates are not well understood. There seems to be a relevant form of cognitive access that can operate in the absence of activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and maybe also in the whole frontal region. If so, then exclusive posterior activation during conscious experiences might very well be compatible with the hypothesis that perceptual consciousness requires cognitive access. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.

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