Association
for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
10th Annual Conference
St Annes
College, Oxford, June 23rd
to 26th 2006
Reviewed by Robert Pepperell
University of
Wales Institute Cardiff
In its recent 125th anniversary
edition, Science magazine listed
the top 25 questions still to be resolved
by science. The understanding of the biological
basis of consciousness was placed second
in importance only to the question of
what the universe is made of. This explosion
of interest in the study of consciousness
over recent years is all the more remarkable
given that it was seen as a topic barely
suitable for scientific investigation
just a couple of decades ago. Even now
there are some who consign such research
to the fringes of scientific acceptability.
Nevertheless, it is clear from the 10th
Annual Conference of the Association for
the Scientific Study of Consciousness
that the problem is attracting some of
the most advanced investigators and thinkers
working today, many of whom presented
their latest research to the 300 or so
attendees.
Although the conference is primarily scientific
in purpose, there were a good number of
philosophical contributions. Indeed the
proceedings were initiated with a talk
from Daniel Dennett author of Consciousness
Explained and recently elected president
of the ASSC. In the fitting surroundings
of the Natural History Museum in Oxford,
he drew an analogy between the gradual
evolution of biological species and the
emergence of conscious thoughts, arguing
that at no specific time or in no specific
place can one say that a particular species
or thought occurs. Each event, he claimed,
is embedded in a wider temporal process
that relies on the dynamic organisation
of sub-events, none of which in itself
constitutes the larger property in question.
For Dennett, the personal mind is organised
from numerous sub-personal
or robotic neurological events,
which are distributed in time and space
and act collectively to produce conscious
experience. This collective activity supports
a kind of fame-in-the-brain
or cerebral celebrity for
those mental events we are aware of
these being Dennetts metaphors
for the general propagation of conscious
thoughts throughout our cognitive architecture.
It was a philosophical argument, made
with reference to certain empirical data,
but nevertheless pointing to the deep
conceptual problems we face in understanding
the very thing with which we understand
things, namely the mind.
Such introspection, however, was entirely
absent from many of the scientific talks,
which largely consisted in the presentation
of experimental data that tended to measure
degrees of awareness rather
than states of consciousness.
The neuroscientist John Driver, for instance,
presented research on cross-modal sensation
and its effect on spatial awareness in
which he showed that the ability to determine
the position of particular tactile stimuli
on the body is affected by visual and
auditory cues. To give a simple example,
it is harder to report which hand is being
stimulated when both are placed close
together as compared to when they are
far apart. As Driver demonstrated, much
evidence has accrued in recent years to
support this cross-modal view of perception,
in which each sensory pathway is significantly
modulated by other pathways, with the
consequence that the conventional notion
that we experience the world through distinct
senses is no longer tenable. The long-term
aim of much research in the field is to
discover some neurological basis for conscious
experience, the so-called neural
correlates of consciousness. Recent
interest has focused on the recurrent
processing that occurs when neural
impulses from higher processing areas
in the brain are returned to earlier processing
centres from where they originated. The
presence of this kind of internal feedback
in the visual system can be shown to closely
correlate with the subjects awareness
of a particular event, and both Victor
Lamme and Vincent Walsh presented experiments
and arguments that supported this view
in the first symposium. But as was made
clear, although recurrent processing seems
necessary for visual awareness, the question
remains opens as to whether it is also
sufficient.
Christof Koch, one of the leading figures
in consciousness research, picked up the
neural-correlate theme in his contribution
to the second symposium. Koch is currently
conducting research that uses ultra-fine
electrodes to record specific neural signals
in human subjects. Intriguingly, he and
his team have found that very particular
cells responded to very specific stimuli.
For example, in one subject a certain
cell would respond consistently to images
of the actress Halle Berry, even wearing
different clothes and even to the text
spelling out her name. Another cell would
respond in a similar way to images of
Jennifer Aniston, but would not fire when
she was shown paired with Brad Pitt. Again
it is somewhat of an open question as
to what exactly this can tell us about
the way our minds work, although some
have seen in this research the sinister
beginnings of a mind reading technology
that calculates our thoughts from particular
fingerprints of neural activity.
Koch was also very excited about the potential
for genetically engineered neurons, which
are currently being developed for controlling
and studying neural behaviour.
Witnessing the quantity and quality of
experimental data being generated in neuroscience
labs around the world, one gets the impression
that science, not philosophy, is making
all the headway in consciousness research.
In fact, on more that one occasion the
question was raised as to what role philosophy
might have to play in the future of the
field. For those of us committed to an
interdisciplinary approach to knowledge
generation, it is alarming to think we
might all be left bobbing about in sciences
wake, struggling to absorb the masses
of increasingly intricate data, much of
which is yet to be fully understood by
those producing it let alone anyone else.
The philosopher Dan Lloyd well
known for his thriller novel about consciousness,
Radiant Cool suggested
that the current enthusiasm for studying
the brain by using momentary snap-shots
taken with magnetic scanners might mislead
us about the true nature of what the brain
is doing. The working assumption in such
techniques is that the slices of brain
activity shown in the scans represent
the present state of the brain
(and by implication, the mind) at the
moment the image is taken. Yet, applying
Husserls concepts of protention
and retention, in which a
given thought carries with it a sense
about the future and the past, Lloyd argued
that each momentary state of the brain
also embodies anticipations and memories,
something that is largely unaccounted
for in current interpretations of the
scanning data. This seemed to be a case
in which an argument from philosophy could
potentially affect the method and object
of the scientific research.
So are we any closer to understanding
what consciousness is and how it works?
Probably not much. But it is clear from
events like the ASSC conference that the
problem of consciousness is having a profound
impact on our contemporary intellectual
landscape. If, as some suggest, it is
a purely mechanical problem, like understanding
how a bee flies, then perhaps it is best
left to those with the expertise to objectively
study the mechanics. But if, as others
hold, it engages the deepest metaphysical
aspects of subjectivity then it may remain
impervious to objective investigation
and mechanical explanation. Recent attempts
to fuse the empirical and philosophical
approaches as in neurophenomenology [1],
or to combine neurobiology and aesthetics
as in neuroaesthetics [2], seem to be
symptomatic of a wider recognition that
the nature of conscious experience is
both objective and subjective.
In which case the broadly accepted and
historically pervasive distinction between
these two categories of knowledge may
be in danger of collapse. Understanding
consciousness becomes then the basic question
facing those who try to make sense of
our existence arguably even
more basic than what the universe is made
from. Moreover, it is a question in which
we all share a stake.
The conference itself was very well organised
and amply accommodated within St. Annes
College. There were a variety of keynotes,
symposia, workshops, poster sessions,
covering a range of topics from
animal consciousness to machine consciousness
and provision to encourage
students and new researchers in the field.
The meeting moves to Las Vegas in 2007,
as is highly recommended for anyone seeking
access to the state of the art in the
study of this most elusive aspect of the
mind.
[1] See review of Between Phenomenology
and Neuroscience, Towards a Science
of Consciousness Conference, Prague, 2004.
Leonardo Reviews, August 2003.
[2] See review of Inner Vision
by Semir Zeki, (Oxford University Press,
1999). Leonardo Reviews, May 2003.