Aristotelian Causation and Neural Correlates of Consciousness
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Aristotelian Causation and Neural Correlates of Consciousness Matthew Owen1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2018
Abstract Neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) are neural states or processes correlated with consciousness. The aim of this article is to present a coherent explanatory model of NCC that is informed by Thomas Aquinas’s human ontology and Aristotle’s metaphysics of causation. After explicating four starting principles regarding causation and mind–body dependence, I propose the Mind–Body Powers model of NCC. Keywords Neural correlates of consciousness · NCC · Consciousness · Aristotelianism · Thomism · Human ontology · Causation · Powers · Mental powers At the end of the previous century, Crick and Koch (1990) instigated the contemporary search for neural correlates of consciousness. Simply put, neural correlates of consciousness are neural states or processes correlated with consciousness. They are the neurobiological mechanisms that are physically sufficient for a conscious state (cf. Chalmers 2000; Koch et al. 2016, p. 307). Accurate or not, a common example of a neural correlate of consciousness (for brevity NCC) is C-fiber activation in one’s nervous system that takes place when the individual is in a conscious state of pain.1 According to this example, the NCC of pain is the neural activity in the form of C-fiber activation corresponding to the conscious state of pain. Neural correlates of consciousness yield significant possibilities, such as mapping the brain according to neural activity corresponding to consciousness and more effectively treating the neurobiological basis of various mental illnesses (see https://www.brain-map.org). In this article, I will assume there are NCC (see Koch et al. 2016). My focus is explaining them. It is often thought that NCC provide powerful evidence for physicalism that undermines dualism (see Murphy 1998, p. 13). Elsewhere, I have argued at length that NCC are neutral vis-à-vis physicalism and dualism (see Owen 2019). As Koch has commented: * Matthew Owen [email protected] 1
Gonzaga University, 502 East Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA 99258, USA
Note that the NCC themselves are neutral from the point of view of physicalism/materialism or one of the various shades of dualism. Under any reading, consciousness will have physical correlates.2 Given this neutrality, NCC alone cannot justify a particular view of the mind (cf. Chalmers 1998, p. 227; Metzinger 2000, pp. 4–5; Tahko 2012, pp. 40–41). Nevertheless, it behooves us to consider which views of the mind can adequately account for NCC. In order to make sense of these “discoveries at the mind–brain hinge” we need a logically coherent theory of consciousness (Koch 2012, p. 121). A coherent framework that accounts for the nature of consciousness plus its corresponding neurobiology can help us interpret NCC data. This is where theoretical neuroscience meets the metaphysics of mind, and where the latter can benefit the former.
1 Objective: Metaphysical Model My aim is to provide a coherent explanatory model o
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