Consciousness & motor decision : toward a science of consciousness Flashcards
- William James
William James 1892
The stream of consciousness
‘Every state tends to be a part of personal consciousness’
- What is consciousness ? : David Chalmers
- The hard problem : the experience, what it feels like to be
- Easy problem : Neural correlates of consciousness
Philosophical zombies“Watson” a computer that can win on humans at Jeopardy. System functionaly identical but the consciousness is the extra ingredient.”
- What is consciousness ?
John Searle about consciousness
“Consciousness consists of those states of sensation, or feeling, or awareness, which begin in the morning when we awake from a dreamless sleep and continue throughout the day until we fall into a coma, or die, or fall asleep again, or otherwise become unconscious”.
A qualia
what it feels like
I. Not a single thing : Distinctions in consciousness
- Experience VS function
- Self awareness VS others awareness
- Level VS content
I. Not a single thing : Level VS Content
Level
(intransitive)
state of wakefulness
Content of consciousness
(transitive)
refers to what goes through our mind when we’re aware of some states of affairs (check)
Wakefulness and awareness can dissociate
sleeping : aware but not awake
Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome : awake but not aware
I. Not a single thing : Self VS others mind
compléter avec schéma des slides
I. Not a single thing : Experience VS function
Access consciousness
conscious representations are globally accessible in a way that unconscious representations are not
Phenomenal consciousness
conscious representations are experienced , they form the content of the subjective experience
à compléter “ wether a- or p- consciousness …”
I. Not a single thing : Illusion
knowledges of the potential source of information give us the illusion that we know the details
I. Not a single thing :
Anil Seth
8 challenges
- Critical regions for consciousness ?
- Mechanism of general anesthesia ?
- Self ?
- experience of volution and will ?
- function of consciousness ? What are experiences for ?
- How rich is consciousness ?
- Are other animals conscious ?
- Are vegetative patients conscious ?
I. Not a single thing
Dennett
VS
Rosenthal
Dennett : Fame in the brain model
Rosenthal : higher order thoughts
II. Science of consciousness : Introduction
Baars : Every mental state is necessarily a brain event
To find the neural correlates of consciousness :
> Use a contrastive method : look for dissociations between information processing with and without consciousness (requires very good behavioral paradigms)
> Use brain imaging methods : Examine the brain in action
> Combine objective and subjective data : Correlate neural activity with subjective experience so as to identify the cerebral regions specificaly involved in conscious processing : “The Neural correlates of consciousness”
INTERDISCIPLINARY BY NECESSITY
II. Science of consciousness : Paradigms
Stimulus doesn’t change, representation changes
- Binocular rivalry
- No report paradigm (optical nystagmus)
- Powerfull movement illusion
Stimulus changes, representation doesn’t
- Change blindness (Cleermans 2006)
- Subliminal perception (temporal dynamic of conscious access)
- Blindsight
- Mind reading
Unconscious action
- Change movement but didn’t notice the target changed
II. Science of consciousness :
3 challenges when designing a paradigm
- Definitional challenges
- Methodological challenges
- Epistemological challenges (what do we do with what we’ve learn)
II. Science of consciousness : Binocular rivalry
Oeil droit et gauche ne voit pas la meme chose
Maison d’un coté, visage de l’autre.
La perception de l’un et de l’autre alterne : on observe une activation alternée de FFA ou PHPA (houses area)
PB : obligé de demander : “Que voyez vous ? “
Dernièr meeting sur la conscience : critique “se voir demander de rapporter ce qe l’on voit et simplement le voir, c’est différent”
=> No report paradigm
