Contents

Implications of Synaesthesia for Functionalism: Theory and Experiments  abstract
Jeffrey A. Gray, Susan Chopping, Julia Nunn, David Parslow, Lloyd Gregory, Steve Williams, Michael J. Brammer, Simon Baron-Cohen

 
Evidence for Symbolic Language Processing in a Bonobo (Pan paniscus)  abstract
James Benson, William Greaves, Michael O’Donnell and Jared Taglialatela

 
Why I Am Not a Property Dualist   full text
John R. Searle

 
Three Tricks of Consciousness: Qualia, Chunking and Selection  abstract
David Hodgson

 
The Need for a Noetic Revolution: Review of Alan Wallace’s The Taboo of Subjectivity   full text
David Lorimer

 
Annual Indexes (Volume 9)   full text

ABSTRACTS

Jeffrey A. Gray, Susan Chopping, Julia Nunn, David Parslow, Lloyd Gregory, Steve Williams, Michael J. Brammer and Simon Baron-Cohen

Implications of Synaesthesia for Functionalism: Theory and Experiments

Abstract: Functionalism offers an account of the relations that hold between behavioural functions, information and neural processing, and conscious experience from which one can draw two inferences: (1) for any discriminable difference between qualia there must be an equivalent discriminable difference in function; and (2) for any discriminable functional difference within a behavioural domain associated with qualia, there must be a discriminable difference between qualia. The phenomenon of word–colour (‘coloured hearing’) synaesthesia (in which individuals see colours when they hear or see words) appears to contradict the second of these inferences. We report data showing that this form of synaesthesia is genuine and probably results from an aberrant projection from cortical language areas to a region (V4/V8) specialized for the perception of colour. Since functionalism purports to be a general account of consciousness, one such negative instance, if it can be further sustained empirically, is sufficient to invalidate it.

Correspondence: Jeffrey A. Gray, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, UK. Other authors currently at same address except: Julia Nunn, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, London SE14 6NW, UK. Lloyd Gregory,  Section of GI Sciences, University of Manchester, Hope Hospital, Stott Lane, Salford, M6 8HD, UK. Simon Baron-Cohen,  Department of Experimental Psychology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK.

James Benson, William Greaves, Michael O’Donnell and Jared Taglialatela

Evidence for Symbolic Language Processing in a Bonobo (Pan paniscus)

Abstract: Evidence that an animal is capable of some degree of symbolic, human language processing supports the argument that the animal’s consciousness is to some degree human-like. In this paper, we reinterpret the findings of Savage- Rumbaugh et al. (1993) using the twin tools of Deacon’s referential hierarchy and Systemic Functional Linguistics, with a view to providing further corroborative evidence for a Bonobo ape’s symbolic processing abilities, and as a result to open a window into the consciousness of at least one non-human primate.

Correspondence: James Benson, Department of English, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada

David Hodgson

Three Tricks of Consciousness: Qualia, Chunking and Selection

This article supports the proposition that, if a judgment about the aesthetic merits of an artistic object can take into account and thereby be influenced by the particular quality of the object, through gestalt experiences evoked by the object, then we have free will. It argues that it is probable that such a judgment can indeed take into account and be influenced by the particular quality of the object through gestalt experiences evoked by it, so as to make it probable that we do have free will. The proposition is supported by reference to two basic tricks apparently involved in conscious processes, which I call the qualia trick and the chunking trick; and it is suggested that these tricks make possible and indeed probable the existence of a third trick, which I call the selection trick.

Correspondence: David Hodgson, Supreme Court of NSW, Queens Square, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

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