Hi Richard,
It says, in effect "Hey, the explanation of consciousness is that it is
caused by X" where X is something that explains absolutely nothing about
whatever consciousness is supposed to be. Moreover, the person
espousing the theory, you can bet, will not be able to state exactly
what they think "consciousness" actually is... they will just be able to
tell you that, whatever it is, their candidate explains it.
I know why you are being sceptical - my initial reactions to theories of
consciousness are usually the same, because people who propose them
usually have ulterior motives (special status of humans, dualism,
religion whatever..)
I don't think that this scientist has these motives, as he is strictly
on the physicalist side. BTW, he also writes a bit about free will, I
disagree with him on this notion as I can not see where free will could
enter a physicalist picture of reality. (But that is anther controversy ;-)
The thing is this: consciousness (the basic phenomenon of awareness)
needs explaining, and I believe science can explain it in physicalist way.
I could just as easily say that consciousness is explained by ... hair
follicles. This Hair Follicle Theory of Consciousness would have the
same qualifications to be considered the correct theory.
Well no - because, esp. via brain lesions etc, we can fairly definitly
locate consciousness _in_ the brain (or the whole brain) - but not
_outside_ the brain.
So we just have to look _where_ in the brain this happens. We can now
endorse modular theories or comprehensive ones, but for this is not very
satisfactory: consciousness is being felt as a unity, and I can't quite
see how individual neurons firing can lead to a unified feeling: this
also goes for synchronous firing, because neuron A does not know that B
fires syncronously, so how could it make a difference at the neural
level (I hope you know what I mean, I can elaborate).
But the EM field is a "unity" - the field is caused by the summary of
_all_ neurons in the brain, and it is also _caused_ by the electric
potentials in all neurons.
Also, the EM field is perfectly physicalist and does not invoke QM
mysteries (a la Hameroff/Penrose which I find bogus and has been
quantitatively refuted by Max Tegmark)
There are more theories of consciousness of this sort than you can swing
a cat at. Go to the Tucson Conference in a few months' time and you
will be able to listen to at least fifty of them.
Yes I know - and most of them a pure bogus at first sight - but I do not
see how this goes for this theory.
We have four fources: gravity, weak and strong nuclear force, and em
force. I think em is the only force which is a candidate for explaining
consciousness.
If you do not want to locate consciousness in any of the forces, then what?
Of course, you can say it is an "emergent" property, but this usually
just begs the question.
I am not yet hooked to the EM-field theory. But it is the most
interesting candidate I have seen in a long time.
Regards,
Günther
--
Günther Greindl
Department of Philosophy of Science
University of Vienna
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/
Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/
Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org
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