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Towards a Science of Consciousness 2003:
Between Phenomenology and Neuroscience Conference,

Prague, Czech Republic, 7-10 July

Reviewed by Robert Pepperell
Polar


pepperell@ntlword.com

There is an inherent paradox in consciousness studies: how could we think about the very thing with which we think? From this paradox flows a range of questions that continue to obsessively occupy philosophers, neuro-psychologists, cognitive scientists, and many others fascinated by the human capacity for self-knowledge. For example, if thinking is an essentially self-centred activity, how could anyone else observe our thoughts without effectively becoming us? To what extent, if at all, does our mental life correlate with biochemical activity at the neuronal level of the body? It is precisely this gap between our personal lived experience on the one hand and observable facts about brain matter on the other that separates phenomenology (the study of introspective experience) and neuroscience (the study of brain behaviour). In fact, to judge from this conference the gap is coded in at the lowest levels of disciplinary practice, with many philosophers on one side tempted towards various shades of dualism in which thought somehow floats above or beyond matter, and the neuroscientists on the other side committed to various shades of materialism, wherein thoughts must be ultimately explicable in purely physical terms.

The eminent philosopher, Ted Honderich, now retired and presumably feeling free to speak his mind, provocatively cast the dispute as one between ‘spiritualists’ and ‘devout physicalists’, no doubt intending to derogate them with implied theistic connotations. Rejecting both, he offered a view of consciousness as existence, which is to say that to be aware of the room one is in "is for the room in a way to exist", the existence of the room, therefore, being a precondition for one’s consciousness of it. The immediate problem with this view is one’s conscious experience of things that cannot be said to exist in anything other than imaginary form, such as dreams, hallucinations, or even falsely planted thoughts such as might be induced in some "brain in a vat". Honderich was obviously familiar with the objection and attempted to neutralise it by appealing to the implausibility of a truly veridical brain in a vat scenario; the virtual signals being passed to the suspended brain, he claimed, would simply not be of good enough quality to sustain a state comparable with the sensed presence of the real thing. This may be so, but it still doesn’t account for highly convincing hallucinations induced by drugs or sensory deprivation, or the sense of reality one has in dreams, none of which depend on a conjectural technological device.

A more emollient line was taken by Evan Thompson who advocated the methodology of ‘neurophenomenology’ in an attempt to combine first-person reports of subjective experience with third-person neuroscientific data derived from brain scanning in order to address the ‘explanatory gap’ between experience and neural activity. Thompson is well known for his embodied approach to cognition, which recognises the role of the active, world-embedded body in the construction of experience. Although the research programme is in its relatively early stages it seems to offer some promise of establishing reciprocation between subjects’ reports and large-scale fluctuations in brain activity, although any suggestion of locating a so-called ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ seems as far away as ever.

The joy of this kind of interdisciplinary conference is the variety and unpredictability of the material one comes across by simply moving from one room to another. Many of the reports from fields such as psychology, neurobiology, cognitive science, quantum theory and psychiatry were buzzing with exciting data and new methodological approaches which suggested consciousness studies is as vital now as it ever has been. Less exciting were the often rarefied contributions made by those philosophers who seem habitually devoted to generating argument, seemingly for its own sake. Georges Rey, for example, made an impassioned (and to me often unintelligible) defence of the claim that contrary to common sense intentionality (thoughts directed "at" things, including other thoughts) is quite distinct from consciousness. Yet it was a case made without any coherent definition, or even description, of what was meant by consciousness, with the result that the distinction upon which his case rested was almost entirely arbitrary.

One strand of the conference that threw up some particularly interesting ideas was that concerned with ‘neuroaesthetics’, the relatively new hybrid discipline in which Semir Zeki is a prominent figure. Having been rather disappointed by the book that set out his views on the subject (see review of Inner Vision in LDR) and many of the claims made by V. S. Ramachandran about art and neurology, it was heartening to see a critical perspective being offered by artists and cultural theorists. Arthur Piper set out a "Critical Definition of Neuro-Esthetics" which challenged the rather simplistic and uncritical attitudes to art objects that one finds in much ‘neuro-centric’ analysis. He argued that instead of regarding works of art as mere perceptual objects one must acknowledge their cultural context and the conditions of viewing, both of which have a considerable impact on their perceived meaning, and hence the viewer’s aesthetic response. Describing the practical difficulties involved in presenting artworks to subjects undergoing brain scanning, it became clear that the experience of art in the laboratory was highly artificial (not to say uncomfortable) and one should be very cautious about drawing any general conclusions from results obtained under such conditions. In the same session Bill Seeley critiqued some key aspects of neuro-aesthetic theory, particularly as developed by Zeki, Jennifer McMahon and Gregory Currie, each of whom asserts in one way or another that aesthetic experience depends on some kind of intuitive realisation of cognitive and perceptual processing. He argued that these attempts to naturalise aesthetic experience, to explain it in accordance with physical laws, rest on a tacit assumption that artists and viewers are appreciating not so much the art but the aesthetic value of the "introspective understanding of the structure of perception". Seeley concludes that although the study of art may inform the study of visual perception it does not necessarily follow that the study of perception will explain the aesthetic appreciation of art.

Prague has been famous since the 16th century as the capital of the occult, and evidence of this history is written into its very fabric, with astrological, alchemical and magical symbols adorning many public buildings. One of the most interesting features of the TSC conferences has been the consistent presentation of respectable scientific research into what might be called paranormal aspects of consciousness. Rainer Schneider discussed the study he and his colleagues are making of ‘unorthodox forms of interaction’, such as remote influence between subjects who share no obvious means of communication. The research found a significant correlation between attempts on the part of an agent to effect the emotional state of a remote subject and the measurable state of the subject so effected. More interestingly, it seems that the effect is more pronounced when self-regulatory processing is suppressed and lower-level intuitive states of mind are in train.

I’m sure anyone attending TSC 2003 will have come away with a long list of references and personal contacts to follow up, as well as a privileged insight into the current state of the consciousness debate across a wide disciplinary spectrum. Whether the considerable amount of intellectual energy expended over those few days has brought us any closer to resolving the inherent paradox of the human mind is less clear.

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Updated 1st August 2003


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