Consciousness Transitions (eBook)

Cover 1
Table of Contents 4
Preface 6
Contributors 10
Chapter 1. Beyond Cognition – On Consciousness Transitions 12
1. What are the problems? 12
2. Knowledge in an evolutionary perspective 14
3. Evolution of cognition 17
4. Evolving consciousness 24
5. Philosophical implications 30
6. Conclusions 32
References 33
Chapter 2. The Remote Roots of Consciousness in Fruit-fly Selective Attention? 38
1. Introduction 38
2. Behavioural selection 40
3. Behavioural suppression 40
4. Fly virtual reality 42
5. Alternating selection 43
6. Salience and memory 44
7. Mushroom bodies 44
8. The missing piece 46
9. Selective attention in the fly brain 47
10. Arousal in the fly brain 49
Acknowledgements 52
References 52
Chapter 3. The Evolution of Consciousness in Animals 56
1. Introduction: The definition of animal consciousness 56
2. Evolution and adaptation 61
3. Consciousness in animals 63
4. Discussion 81
References 83
Chapter 4. On the Origin of Consciousness – Some Amniote Scenarios 88
1. Introduction 88
2. The basic consciousness criteria are anthropocentric 89
3. Sharpening the consciousness criteria — some principal consciousness-brain theories 90
4. Testing the principal criteria — the case of general anaesthesia 91
5. The phylogenetic origin of consciousness 93
6. Reconsidering reptilian cognitive behaviour 100
7. Conclusions 101
References 103
Chapter 5. A Bird’s Eye View of Consciousness 108
1. Introduction 108
2. Which organisms are conscious? 108
3. Function of feelings 110
4. Emergence of consciousness 111
5. Vertebrate intelligence 112
6. Complex learning 117
7. Association formation and causality 118
8. Language 120
9. Association formation in humans 122
10. Infantile amnesia 124
11. Language and self 127
12. Self and consciousness 128
13. Concluding comments 129
References 130
Chapter 6. The Molecular Biology of Consciousness 134
1. Introduction 134
2. Modelling consciousness: the neuronal workspace hypothesis 137
3. The neuronal nicotinic receptors: allosteric membrane proteins that modulate higher brain function 138
4. The integration of neuronal nicotinic receptors to the neuronal work-space architecture 143
5. Nicotinic receptors and states of consciousness in the mouse 144
6. Nicotinic receptors and nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsies 146
7. Nicotinic receptors and the content of consciousness 147
8. The joint recovery of exploratory behaviour and reward function by targeted re-expression of nAChR subunit 151
9. Is the mouse a useful animal model to investigate consciousness? 153
Acknowledgments 160
References 160
Chapter 7. The Emergence of Consciousness in the Newborn 172
1. Introduction 172
2. Neurons - the atoms of consciousness 172
3. The localization of consciousness 173
4. Developmental anatomy of consciousness 174
5. The neurochemistry of consciousness 175
6. Methods to study consciousness in the fetus and the infant 175
7. Components of consciousness 177
8. Integration of the components 182
9. Cyber-babies 183
10. When does minimal consciousness emerge? 183
Acknowledgement 185
References 185
Chapter 8. An Inside-Out Paradigm for Consciousness and Intelligence 188
1. Introduction 188
2. The new paradigm 189
3. The consciousness mechanism 192
4. Anatomical and physiological basis 194
5. Intelligence and autism 197
6. Epilogue: A physics of thought? 199
Acknowledgements 200
References 200
Chapter 9. Consciousness Without a Cerebral Cortex 204
1. Introduction 204
2. Clinical beginnings 206
3. Bringing the centrencephalic proposal up to date 210
4. Integration for action 215
5. Consciousness in children born without cortex 235
6. Implications for medical ethics 239
7. Conclusion 240
Acknowledgements 240
Notes 241
References 241
Chapter 10. Three Types of State Transition Underlying Perception 242
1. Introduction 242
2. Neural activity in the olfactory system 243
3. The role of preafference in attention 245
4. Associative (Hebbian) learning requires structural bifurcation 248
5. Modifiable synapses provide for generalization over categories of stimuli 250
6. The role of stochastic chaos in Hebbian learning 251
7. Interpretations of intentionality in neurodynamics 252
8. Conclusions 255
References 256
Chapter 11. Conscious Contents Provide Coherent, Global Information 260
1. Introduction 260
2. Capability constraints: arguments for associating consciousness with a global data base 269
3. The boundaries of conscious contents 278
4. Summary and conclusions 285
Acknowledgements 287
Notes 287
References 288
Chapter 12. Evolutionary and Developmental Aspects of Intersubjectivity 292
1. Intersubjectivity 292
2. Sensations, perceptions and imaginations 293
3. The inner world 295
4. Components of intersubjectivity 296
5. Representing emotions 298
6. Representing desires 300
7. Representing attention 301
8. Representing intentions 303
9. Representing beliefs and knowledge 305
10. Coevolution of intersubjectivity and cooperation 308
11. Conclusion 311
Acknowledgements 313
Notes 313
References 313
Chapter 13. The Phenomenon of Consciousness from a Popperian Perspective 318
1. Popper’s view on consciousness 318
3. The Popperian three-world idea 319
3. The three-world idea and the theory of knowledge 322
4. On the difference between psychotherapy and drug therapy 327
5. Popperian psychology 327
6. The tone of subjective states 329
7. The gap between neural events and conscious states 330
8. Somatic markers 331
9. Supervenience of linguistic hypotheses: Between dualism and physicalism 333
10. The key role of language and world 3 334
References 336
Index 338