Table Of ContentLIFE, BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS
New Perceptions through
Targeted Systems Analysis
ADVANCES
IN
PSYCHOLOGY
63
Editors:
G.E. STELMACH
P.A. VROON
NORTH-HOLLAND
AMSTERDAM NEW YORK OXFORD TOKYO
LIFE, BRAIN
AND
CONSCIOUSNESS
New Perceptions through
Targeted Systems Analysis
Gerd SOMMERHOFF
I990
NORTH-HOLL-A ND
AMSTERDAM NEW YORK OXFORD TOKYO
NORTH-HOLLAND
ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V.
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ISBN: 0 444 88436 x
0 ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V., 1990
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V
CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1. - INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
1.1 - Science and the nature of consciousness 1
1.2 - The importance of the problem for science 3
1.3 - The state of the art 4
1.4 - 'Conscious', 'consciousness' and 'internal representations' 9
1.5 - Further aspects of consciousness 14
1.6 - The three basic categories of internal representations 17
1.7 - The application of systems theory 22
1.8 - The neural correlates of mental events 25
1.9 - Deeper levels of consciousness 30
Part I: LIFE
CHAPTER 2. - ORDER AND LIFE
Introduction and summary 37
2.1 - The directiveness of vital activities 38
2.2 - Dynamic versus structural order 39
2.3 - The range and importance of teleological concepts 42
2.4 - Past misconceptions 44
CHAPTER 3. - THE DEFINITION OF TELEOLOGICAL CONCEFI'S IN NON-
TELEOLOGICAL TERMS
summary 47
3.1 - General characteristics of directive activities 47
3.2 - Their common pattern of causal relationships 5 1
3.3 - Further comments 58
3.4 - Applications of the concept of directive correlation 63
vi Con tents
Part 11: BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS.
CHAPTER 4. - CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
Summary 71
-
4.1 The psychologist's dilemma 72
-
4.2 The meaning of consciousness 75
-
4.3 Internal representations of the outside world 78
-
4.4 The functional definition of 'internal representation' 82
4.5 - Three main categories of internal representations 86
4.6 - Selecting a technical definition of consciousness 90
-
CHAPTER 5. THE PHYSICAL STRUcmTRE OF THE INTERNAL
REPRESENTATIONS
summary 95
5.1 - General structural considerations 97
5.2 - The Conditional Expectancy Hypothesis 99
-
5.3 Categories and ascending orders of expectancies 104
5.4 - Empirical evidence and additional arguments 110
5.5 - The learning changes involved 121
5.6 - Further comments on visual perception 127
5.7 - Contrasts with other theories of perception 131
CHAPTER 6. - THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF THE INTERNAL
REPRESENTATIONS
Summary 139
6.1 - Recapitulation 140
-
6.2 The neural correlates of states of readiness 142
6.3 - The neural correlates of states of expectancy 149
6.4 - Intentions and their execution 151
6.5 - The seat of consciousness and the effect of lesions 159
-
6.6 Conflicting beliefs in brain research 168
Contents vii
CHAPTER 7. - SELF-AWARENESS, IMAGINATION AND MEMORY
Recapitulation and summary 17 1
7.1 - Self-awareness 172
-
7.2 Properties of the imagination 177
7.3 - The neural correlates of the imagination 180
7.4 - Aspects of memory 185
7.5 - Episodic memory recall 190
CHAPTER 8. - LANGUAGE AND RATIONAL THOUGHT
Introduction and summary 199
8.1 - Classes and the internal representation of classes 203
8.2 - Logical relationships between classes 204
8.3 - The brain's struggle with nameless entities 207
8.4 - What the sentence structure communicates 210
8.5 - Mental images and the propositional form 214
8.6 - The foundations of rational thought 216
CHAPTER 9. - MIND AND MATIER
Summary 219
9.1 - Categories of mental events 219
9.2 - The bridge between mind and matter 221
9.3 - The unity of the self in split-brain subjects 222
9.4 - The freedom of the will 224
9.5 - Knowledge and belief 226
9.6 - Artificial Intelligence 228
9.7 - Contrasts with the approach of academic philosophy 234
Part 111: CULTURE
CHAPTER 10. - DEEPER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS (1)
Introduction to Part III and summary 243
10.1 - A crucial departure from the biological norm 248
10.2 - The roots of the human psyche 251
10.3 - Frustration, conflict and anxiety 255
viii Contents
CHAPTER 11. - DEEPER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS (2)
11.1 - The sense of beauty 259
-
11.2 The moral sense 266
11.3 -A distinctive step in the evolution of life 273
-
11.4 The religious dimension 274
11.5 - Concluding remarks 282
PART IV: APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Further applications of the concept of directive correlation 287
APPENDIX B: Some basic concepts of set theory 291
APPENDIX C Some basic concepts of formal logic 299
APPENDIX D: Generative and transformational grammars 305
APPENDIX E Some basic concepts of information theory 31 1
APPENDIX F Physical systems and causal relationships 315
***
BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 19
INDEX 329
ix
PREFACE
The natural sciences deal with the observation and explanation of the physical world.
Their language is a physical language in the sense that all key-concepts are carefully
defined in terms of what is observable, measurable, or otherwise operationally accessible
in the physical world - or in terms of abstractions from these elements construed with
equal care. And the, natural sciences owe their power and success as a collective
enterprise, including the verifiability of their propositions, to the semantic precision and
universally standardized meanings which can be established on this basis.
Biology and physiology are part of the natural sciences, and their language, too, is
a physical language in the above sense. But the faculty of consciousness has so far
eluded their grasp. The primary reason for this must be seen in a failure of scientists to
find ways of defining, describing and analyzing this faculty in physical terms without
violating what in everyday speech is meant by words like 'conscious' or consciousness'.
The attempts of behaviourists of the Watson and Skinner school to deal with
consciousness in terms that satisfied the canons of the natural sciences failed precisely on
this score. Two major obstacles have been the subjectivity of what we commonly mean
by conscious experience, and the reflexive nature of self-consciousness when this term is
understood as knowledge of what passes in one's own mind.
Yet the problem has to be solved if the study of human cognition is to be placed on
a truly sound scientific footing. Moreover, without understanding the physiology of
consciousness we cannot come to understand the physiology of mental events generally.
The mind/body problem, too, will remain unresolved - one of the greatest remaining
challenges in modem science.
In this monograph I intend to show that the various obstacles that confront those
who seek to deal with consciousness in a physical language can be overcome if a strictly
methodical approach is followed in which from the start all analytical concepts are
accurately defined in physical terms. Or rather, I intend to show how very far one can get
by following such an approach.
Equally important is the realization that, since the brain acts as an integral whole in
the higher brain functions, the proper scientific approach here has to be a top-down
approach. That is to say, an approach which begins by looking at the brain as a system.
This contrasts with the bottom-up approach which begins at the level of individual
neurons and has remained the common approach in brain research; also with the
information-processing approach (another bottom-up approach), and with the
biochemical approach which studies the effect on brain functions of chemical agents of
one kind or another.
