Contents

Refereed Papers

Roger Walsh   abstract
Can Synaesthesia Be Cultivated? Indications from Surveys of Meditators
Rainer Schönhammer   abstract
‘Typical Dreams’: Reflections of Arousal
Thomas W. Clark   abstract
Killing the Observer
Jonathan C.W. Edwards   abstract
Is Consciousness Only a Property of Individual Cells?
Ilya Farber   abstract
How Can a Correlation Function as an Explanation?
Anton Lethin   abstract
Covert Agency with Proprioceptive Feedback
Alain Morin   abstract
Possible Links Between Conscious Awareness and Inner Speech

Review Article  full text

Chris Clarke
Being and Field Theory: A Review Article on Brain and Being, ed. Gordon G. Globus et al.

Book Reviews  full text

Richard E. Cytowic
Lynn C. Robertson and Noam Sagiv (ed.), Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience
Justus de Swart
Ran R. Hassin, James S. Uleman & John A. Bargh (ed.), The New Unconscious
Bill Faw
Christopher Partridge (ed.), UFO Religions
Anthony Freeman
Philip Clayton, Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness
Roblin Meeks
Michael Tye, Consciousness and Persons: Unity and Identity
Greg Nixon
Stanley I. Greenspan and Stuart G. Shanker, The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans
Hugh Noble
Gregg Rosenberg, A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World
Chris Nunn
Daniel C. Dennett, Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness

ABSTRACTS

Thomas W. Clark

Killing the Observer

‘Nor is it any longer clear how to understand the notion of our grasping the “simple facts of consciousness” from the perspective of the first person.’
Abstract: Phenomenal consciousness is often thought to involve a first-person perspective or point of view which makes available to the subject categorically private, first-person facts about experience, facts that are irreducible to third-person physical, functional, or representational facts. This paper seeks to show that on a representational account of consciousness, we don’t have an observational perspective on experience that gives access to such facts, although our representational limitations and the phenomenal structure of consciousness make it strongly seem that we do. Qualia seem intrinsic and functionally arbitrary, and thus categorically private, because they are first-order sensory representations that are not themselves directly represented. Further, the representational architecture that on this account instantiates conscious subjectivity helps to generate the intuition of observerhood, since the phenomenal subject may be construed as outside, not within, experience. Once the seemings of private phenomenal facts and the observing subject are discounted, we can understand consciousness as a certain variety of neurally instantiated, behaviour controlling content, that constituted by an integrated representation of the organism in the world. Neuroscientific research suggests that consciousness and its characteristic behavioural capacities are supported by widely distributed but highly integrated neural processes involving communication between multiple functional sub-systems in the brain. This ‘global workspace’ may be the brain’s physical realization of the representational architecture that constitutes consciousness.

Correspondence: Email: twc@naturalism.org

Jonathan C.W. Edwards

Is Consciousness Only a Property of Individual Cells?

Abstract: We perceive colour, shape, sound and touch ‘bound together’ in a single experience. The following arguments about this binding phenomenon are raised: However absurd this may seem it appears to be consistent with the available evidence; arguably the only explanation that is. It probably does not alter the way we should expect to experience the world, but may help to explain the ways we seem to differ from digital computers and some of the paradoxes seen in mental illness. It predicts non-digital features of intracellular computation, for which there is already evidence, and which should be open to further experimental exploration. The arguments given may well prove flawed or the conclusion biologically or physically untenable, but the idea is raised for discussion not least because a formal demonstration that it is invalid may help to identify more fruitful avenues.

Correspondence: Prof. J Edwards, 4th Floor, Arthur Stanley House, Tottenham Street, London W1T 4NJ, England. Email: jo.edwards@ucl.ac.uk

Ilya Farber

How a Neural Correlate Can Function as an Explanation of Consciousness

Evidence from the history of science regarding the likely explanatory value of the NCC approach

Abstract: A frequent criticism of the neuroscientific approach to consciousness is that its theories describe only ‘correlates’ or ‘analogues’ of consciousness, and so fail to address the nature of consciousness itself. Despite its apparent logical simplicity, this criticism in fact relies on some substantive assumptions about the nature and evolution of scientific explanations. In particular, it is usually assumed that, in expressing correlations, neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) theories must fail to capture the causal structure relating brain and mind. Drawing on work in the history and philosophy of science, I argue that this assumption – along with the related claim that even a correct NCC theory would fail to explain consciousness – is grounded in an inadequate conception of the way in which scientific explanations develop. Examination of parallel developments in 20th century biology reveals that, under the right circumstances, seemingly crude correspondences can play an essential role in scientific discovery and can sometimes become central to our everyday understanding of the phenomena in question. A proper understanding of this process clarifies the value of NCC theories and sheds light on the standards by which they should be evaluated. In closing, I describe two specific criteria for evaluating NCC proposals: intertheoretic bridge potential and detailed mapping.

Correspondence: Ilya Farber,School of Economics and Social Science, Singapore Management University, 90 Stamford Road, Singapore 178903. Email: ilya@reductio.com

Anton Lethin

Covert Agency with Proprioceptive Feedback

Abstract: Marcel says that the experience of ownership of actions is given in the specifications for action. He is referring not to a bodily movement but that which precedes it. Is the body involved or are all the changes in the brain? This paper examines the evidence for changes in the spinal cord and muscles that occur with motor imagery, simulation and preparation. There are changes in the alpha motoneurons and in the gamma motoneurons to the muscle spindles. These may be caused by stimulation from the covert efferent arm to the body. To experience the ownership of covert actions in the body requires feedback to the owner as their spatially perspectival source. There is evidence that an ascending pathway from the muscle spindles to the brain carries such feedback. This view of the feedback loop is integrated into the sensorimotor view of the genesis of consciousness of Ellis and Newton.
Key words: specifications, perspectival source, corticospinal excitability, efference, fusimotor, motoneurons, ascending propioception.

Correspondence: Anton Lethin, 300 Moncada Way, San Francisco, CA 94127, USA. Email: a.lethin@att.net

Alain Morin

Possible Links Between Self-Awareness and Inner Speech

Theoretical background, underlying mechanisms, and empirical evidence

Abstract: A neurocognitive and socioecological model of self-awareness has been recently proposed (Morin, 2003; 2004). The model takes into account most known mechanisms and processes leading to self-awareness, and examines their multiple and complex interactions. Inner speech is postulated to play a key-role in this model, as it establishes important connections between many of its elements. This paper first reviews past and current references to a link between self-awareness and inner speech. It then presents an analysis of the nature of the relation between these two concepts. It is suggested that inner speech can internally reproduce and expand social and physical (ecological) sources of self- awareness. Inner speech can also create a psychological distance between the self and mental events it experiences (thus facilitating self-observation)  it can act as a problem-solving device where the self represents the problem and self-information the solution, and can label aspects of one’s inner life that would otherwise be difficult to objectively perceive. Empirical evidence supporting the role of inner speech in self-awareness is also presented.

Correspondence: Alain Morin, Behavioral Sciences, Mount Royal College, 4825 Mount Royal Gate S.W., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T3E 6K6. Email: amorin@mtroyal.ab.ca

Rainer Schönhammer

‘Typical Dreams’: Reflections of Arousal

Abstract: Dreams of chase or pursuit, falling, sex, flying, nudity, failing an examination, one’s own and other’s death, fire, teeth falling out and some other themes experienced, even if only rarely, by many people all over the world have been labelled ‘typical dreams’. This essay argues that typical dreaming, rather a syndrome of themes than monothematic, reflects an extraordinary state of mind and brain. Odd and particularly memorable perceptions, as well as emerging awareness of sleep and dreaming — i.e. parallels to lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, complex partial seizure, epileptic and migraine auras, and aspects of dreaming after trauma — can be traced with some plausibility in all prominent variants of typical dreaming. When viewed from this perspective, for example, dream pursuers are much more a shadow of the bodily self than a metaphor for the psycho-biographical situation or evolutionarily implemented sparring partners who make dreamers fit for the struggle for survival during waking hours.

Correspondence: Rainer Schönhammer, Hochschule für Kunst und Design, Halle (Saale), Psychologie der Gestaltung, Postfach 200252, 06003 Halle (Saale), Germany.
Email: schoenha@burg-halle.de

Roger Walsh

Can Synaesthesia Be Cultivated? Indications from Surveys of Meditators

Abstract: Synaesthesia is considered a rare perceptual capacity, and one that is not capable of cultivation. However, meditators report the experience quite commonly, and in questionnaire surveys, respondents claimed to experience synaesthesia in 35% of meditation retreatants, in 63% of a group of regular meditators, and in 86% of advanced teachers. These rates were significantly higher than in nonmeditator controls, and displayed significant correlations with measures of amount of meditation experience. A review of ancient texts found reports suggestive of synaesthesia in advanced meditators from India and China. These findings suggest that synaesthesia may be cultivated by meditation, and that laboratory studies of meditators could be rewarding.

Correspondence: Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of California College of Medicine, Irvine, CA 92697-1675, USA.

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