The relation of consciousness to the material world

Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):255-265 (1995)
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Abstract

Within psychology and the brain sciences, the study of consciousness and its relation to human information processing is once more a focus for productive research. However, some ancient puzzles about the nature of consciousness appear to be resistant to current empirical investigations, suggesting the need for a fundamentally different approach. In Velmans I have argued that functional accounts of the mind do not `contain' consciousness within their workings. Investigations of information processing are not investigations of consciousness as such. Given this, first-person investigations of experience need to be related nonreductively to third-person investigations of processing. For example, conscious contents may be related to neural/physical representations via a dual-aspect theory of information. Chalmers arrives at similar conclusions. But there are also theoretical differences. Unlike Chalmers I argue for the use of neutral information processing language for functional accounts rather than the term `awareness'. I do not agree that functionalctional equivalence cannot be extricated from phenomenal equivalence, and suggest a hypothetical experiment for doing so - using a cortical implant for blindsight. I argue that not all information has phenomenal accompaniments, and introduce a different form of dual-aspect theory involving `psychological complementarity'. I also suggest that the hard problem posed by `qualia' has its origin in a misdescription of everyday experience implicit in dualism.

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Max Velmans
Goldsmiths College, University of London

Citations of this work

Consciousness and the "causal paradox".Max Velmans - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (3):538-542.
Psychophysical Nature.Max Velmans - 2007 - In Harald Atmanspacher & Hans Primas (eds.), [Book Chapter] (in Press). Springer. pp. 115-134..

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