Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T15:32:53.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Functional theories can describe many features of conscious phenomenology but cannot account for its existence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2022

Max Velmans Open the ORCID record for Max Velmans [Opens in a new window]
Max Velmans*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, LondonSE14 6NW, UK. m.velmans@gold.ac.ukhttps://www.gold.ac.uk/psychology/staff/velmans/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Merker, Williford, and Rudrauf argue persuasively that integrated information is not identical to or sufficient for consciousness, and that projective geometries more closely formalize the spatial features of conscious phenomenology. However, these too are not identical to or sufficient for consciousness. Although such third-person specifiable functional theories can describe the many forms of consciousness, they cannot account for its existence.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e62
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Kihlstrom, J. (1996). Perception without awareness of what is perceived, learning without awareness of what is learned. In Velmans, M. (ed.), The science of consciousness: Psychological, neuropsychological and clinical reviews (pp. 23–46). Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehar, S. (2003). Gestalt isomorphism and the primacy of subjective conscious experience: A gestalt bubble model. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 26(4), 375–444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oizumi, M., Albantakis, L., & Tononi, G. (2014). From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: Integrated information theory 3.0. PLoS Computational Biology, 10(5), e1003588. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereira, A. Jr. (2018). The projective theory of consciousness: From neuroscience to philosophical psychology. Trans/Form/Ação, Marília, 41, 199–232. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3173.2018.v41esp.11.p199CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Revonsuo, A. (2006). Inner presence: Consciousness as a biological phenomenon. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rudrauf, D., Bennequin, D., Granic, I., Landini, G., Friston, K., & Williford, K. (2017). A mathematical model of embodied consciousness. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 428, 106–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seager, W. (Ed.) (2020). The Routledge handbook of panpsychism. Routledge.Google Scholar
Shani, I. (2015). Cosmopsychism: A holistic approach to the metaphysics of experience. Philosophical Papers, 44(3), 389–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherrington, C. S. (1942). Man on His nature. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Skrbina, D. (2009). Panpsychism in history: An overview. In Skrbina, D. (Ed.), Mind that abides: Panpsychism in the new millennium. John Benjamins, pp. 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tononi, G. (2008). Consciousness as integrated information: A provisional manifesto. Biological Bulletin, 215, 216–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Trehub, A. (2007). Space, self, and the theater of consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 310–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velmans, M. (1990). Consciousness, brain, and the physical world. Philosophical Psychology, 3, 77–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velmans, M. (1991). Is human information processing conscious? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14(4), 651–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velmans, M. (2008). Reflexive monism. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 15(2), 5–50.Google Scholar
Velmans, M. (2009). Understanding consciousness, 2nd ed. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velmans, M. (2012) The evolution of consciousness. In D. Canter & D. Tunbull (Eds.), Contemporary Social Science. Special Issue on Biologising the Social Sciences: Challenging Darwinian and Neuroscience Explanations, 7(2), 117–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velmans, M. (2021) Is the universe conscious? Reflexive monism and the ground of being. In Kelly, E. & Marshall, P. (Eds.) Consciousness unbound (pp. 175–228). Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar