Inner Presence: Consciousness As a Biological Phenomenon

by Antti Revonsuo

The question of consciousness is perhaps the most significant problem still unsolved by science. In Inner Presence, Antti Revonsuo proposes a novel approach to the study of consciousness that integrates findings from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience into a coherent theoretical framework. Arguing that any fruitful scientific approach to the problem must consider both the subjective psychological reality of consciousness and the objective neurobiological reality, Revonsuo proposes that the best strategy for discovering the connection between these two realities is one of "biological realism," using tools of the empirical biological sciences. This approach, which he calls the "biological research program," provides a theoretical and philosophical foundation that contemporary study of consciousness lacks. Revonsuo coins the term "world simulation metaphor" and uses this metaphor to develop a powerful way of thinking about consciousness as a biological system in the brain. This leads him to propose that the dreaming brain and visual consciousness are ideal model systems for empirical consciousness research. He offers a comprehensive overview and critical analysis of consciousness research and defends his approach against currently popular philosophical views, in particular against approaches that deny or externalize phenomenal consciousness, or claim that brain activity is not sufficient for consciousness. He systematically examines the principal issues in the science of consciousness -- the contents of consciousness, the unity of consciousness and the binding problem, the explanatory gap and the neural correlates of consciousness, and the causal powers and function of consciousness. Revonsuo draws together empirical data from a wide variety of sources, including dream research, brain imaging, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology, into the theoretical framework of the biological research program, thus pointing the way toward a unified biological science of consciousness. Applying imaginative thought experiments, Inner Presence reaches beyond the current state-of-the-art, revealing how the problem of consciousness may eventually be solved by future science.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Science, Biology

473 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 2005

About the author

Antti Revonsuo is a cognitive neuroscientist, psychologist, and philosopher of mind. His work seeks to understand consciousness as a biological phenomenon. He is one of a small number of philosophers running their own laboratories.

Currently, Revonsuo is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Skövde in Sweden and of psychology at the University of Turku in Finland. His work focuses on altered states of consciousness in general and dreaming in particular. He is best known for his Threat Simulation Theory, which – in the tradition of evolutionary psychology – states that dreams serve the biological function of rehearsing possibly threatening situations in order to aid survival, and his advocacy of the dreaming brain as a model of consciousness.

Revonsuo completed his graduate education at the University of Turku, receiving his Master’s Degree in Psychology in 1990, a Licentiate in Philosophy in 1991, and finally a Ph.D. in Psychology in 1995. Since 2003, he is a member of the Academy of Finland.

Reviews

[Teo · Rating 5 out of 5]

2015.12.10–2016.01.12

I found this a wonderful (if often too wordy) treatment of consciousness as an evolutionarily adaptive virtual simulation of a world (3D coordinate system; sense of space) and its contents (the phenomenal 'semantic windows' that open up in and modulate the space), including modeling one's own body at the center of the egocentric simulation. This is heavily based on neuroscientific research—as consciousness research (especially the imagined Future Center of Phenomenal Neuroscience) should be. In addition, in the last chapters, an interesting case is made for the hypothesis that [a/the] function of dreaming (≠ sleeping) is to simulate threats, thus increasing the probability that during wakefulness one's sensorimotor programs are well-oiled to detect and react to such threats (aggression by animals or unknown (mostly-)males; misfortunes; conflicts; abandonment; ...) that to-be-parents had to navigate correctly [even/especially if] surprised and under time pressure.

I wish your world the full range of phenomenal properties [of positive valence] and lots of shared semantic windows that make it effectively overlap with those of others. (Mine feels kind of spherical with a "me" in the center; how about yours?)

Contents

Revonsuo A (2006) Inner Presence - Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon

Part I: Theoretical Foundations of the Research Program

01. Consciousness as a Biological Phenomenon
• The Study of Consciousness: Pretending to Be a Science, But Is It Really?
• The Explanation of Consciousness Requires a Unified Research Program
• A Research Program Must Be Committed to Some Fundamental Assumptions: Not Anything Goes
• Consciousness: A Theoretical Problem for the Biology of the Mind
• The Hard Core of the Biological Research Program
• Explanation in the Biological Sciences Is Different from Explanation in Physics
• Multilevel Explanation: The Proper Explanatory Strategy for the Biology of the Mind
• The Hierarchical Structure of the World: Levels
• The Network of Biological Explanation
• Summary

02. A Conceptual Map of the Territory
• The First Stage of Explanation: Systematic Description
• The Diversity of Consciousness
• Basic Concepts of Consciousness
• Confusing Conceptions of Consciousness
• Confusing Creatures, Conscious States, and Altered States of Consciousness
• The Absence of Consciousness
• Summary

Part II: The Dreaming Brain: A Model System for the Science and Philosophy of Consciousness

03. The Dreaming Brain as a Model System
• Model Systems in Biological Science
• The Dreaming Brain
• The Dreaming Brain Generates Phenomenal Consciousness
• Phenomenal Consciousness Generated by the Dreaming Brain Includes the Full Range of Phenomenal Contents
• Phenomenal Consciousness Generated by the Dreaming Brain Has Similar Overall Form and Contents as Phenomenal Consciousness during Wakefulness
• Summary

04. The Dreaming Brain and the Location of Consciousness
• The Localization Problem
• The Dreaming Brain: Constraints on the Locus of Control
• Sensory Organs Never Sleep
• What Would We Dream about if We Slept with Our Eyes Open?
• Where the Blind Can See Again
• When the Physical Body Is Fully Paralyzed
• Where the Crippled Can Walk Again
• The Phenomenal Reality in the Brain
• The Neural Basis of the Phenomenal Level in the Dreaming Brain
• Summary

05. Metaphors of Consciousness
• Metaphors as Tools of Thought in Science
• The Multiple Drafts Metaphor
• The Theater-Spotlight Metaphor
• From the Dreaming Brain to a Novel Metaphor of Consciousness
• Summary

06. The World-Simulation Metaphor of Consciousness
• World Simulation
• The Sense of Presence
• The Sense of Presence in Virtual Reality and Dream Consciousness
• Dreaming as an Out-of-Brain Experience
• Perception as the Brain's Natural Telepresence System
• Summary

07. The Philosophy of Virtual Presence
• Representative Realism
• Epistemological Worries
• Metaphysical Worries
• The Philosophy of Presence
• The Metaphysical Basis of Biological Realism
• Summary

08. Paths Not Taken: Contemporary Alternatives to Biological Realism
• Biological Realism and the Reality and Place of Phenomenal Consciousness
• Antirealism about Phenomenal Consciousness
• The Sensorimotor Theory of Consciousness
• Radical Embodiment of Consciousness
• Intentional Accounts of Consciousness: Representationalism and Content Externalism
• Neurophenomenology
• HOT Theories of Consciousness
• Direct Realism: Are Colors in the World or in the Brain?
• Panpsychism
• Projection Theory and the Reflexive Model
• How to Solve the Location Paradox without Miraculous Projection?
• Phenomenalism
• Summary

Part III: The Phenomenal Level

09. The Virtual Space around Us
• Phenomenology as an Empirical Enquiry
• Phenomenal Spatiality
• Representationalism and Phenomenal Spatiality
• Other Views on Phenomenal Space
• Is the Spatial Disunity of Consciousness Conceivable?
• Summary

10. The Phenomenal Contents of Consciousness
• The Structure of the Phenomenal World
• Basic Contents of the Phenomenal World
• Dissociations of Phenomenal Contents
• What Is the Virtual Dream World Made Of?
• The Hierarchical Organization of the Virtual World
• Summary

Part IV: Binding and the Phenomenal Unity of Consciousness

11. The Binding Problem and the Unity of Consciousness
• What Is the Binding Problem?
• Stimulus-Related Binding
• Consciousness-Related Binding
• Binding at Different Levels of Description
• The Binding Problem in the Science of Consciousness
• Summary

12. Binding and Phenomenal Disunity I: What Visual Disorders Tell about Consciousness
• Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organization
• Apperceptive Agnosia: Visual Qualities Disorganized
• Qualities and Perceptual Organization
• The Continuum of Consciousness
• Part Binding and Associative Agnosia
• Feature Binding
• Achromatopsia
• The Mechanisms Involved in Phenomenal Color
• Phenomenal Motion in the Brain
• Superfluous Phenomenal Features: Synesthesia
• Summary

13. Binding and Phenomenal Disunity II: Objects and Space
• Opening Semantic Windows: Semantic-Conceptual Binding
• Location Binding and the Space around Us
• Hemispatial Neglect and Phenomenal Space
• Split Brain
• Summary

14. Binding in Dreams
• Binding and Dream Bizarreness
• Part Binding in Dreams
• Failures of Semantic-Conceptual Binding in Dreams
• Discontinuity as a Failure of Serial Binding
• The Mechanisms of Bizarreness
• Binding and the Unity of Human Characters in Dreams
• Summary

15. Cognitive Mechanisms of Phenomenal Unity
• Feature Integration Theory
• "Object Tokens" as Virtual Objects
• Consciousness and Attention
• No Consciousness without Attention?
• Change Blindness
• Inattentional Blindness
• Conflicting Interpretations of Change Blindness and Inattentional Blindness
• Iconic Memory and the Interplay between Attention and Consciousness
• Phenomenal Vision outside the Attentional Spotlight
• Summary

16. Neural Mechanisms of Binding
• Neural Coding
• Grandmother Cells
• Population Coding
• Temporal Binding
• Gestalts in the Brain: Binding and Synchronizing Connections
• Consciousness and Neural Synchronicity
• Theories about Neural Synchronization
• Human Studies on Binding and Synchronization
• Summary

Part V: A Bridge Across the Explanatory Gap

17. The Explanatory Gap
• The Explanatory Gap and the Theory Reduction Model
• Explanatory Gaps and Multilevel Explanation
• Lessons to Be Learned from Explanatory Gaps
• Summary

18. Beyond the Neural Correlates of Consciousness
• How to Find the Phenomenal Level in the Brain?
• Defining the "Neural Correlates of Consciousness"
• Will Discovery of Neural Correlates Explain Consciousness?
• The Constitutive Mechanisms of Phenomenal Content
• The Discovery of Consciousness in the Brain
• Summary

19. Closing in on the Mechanisms of Consciousness
• The Top-Down Strategy: The Features of the Phenomenal Level as Constraints
• The Bottom-Up Strategy: Defining the Neural Correlates of Consciousness
• The Physiological Mechanisms of the Phenomenal Level
• The Master Loop Hypothesis
• Summary

20. The Methods of Neuroscience in the Search for Consciousness
• Single-Cell Recordings with Invasive Microelectrodes
• Rat Dreams Discovered in the Brain?
• Extracranial Electrical (EEG) and Magnetic (MEG) Recordings
• Functional Brain Imaging with PET and fMRI
• Prospects for the Discovery of Consciousness
• Summary

21. The Future of Explanations of Consciousness
• The Explanatory Power of Models
• Explanatory Models: Mirrors of Reality Accessible to Conscious Understanding
• Modeling Consciousness: A Hall of Mirrors?
• What Would the Phenomenal Level Look Like?
• What Would Be Required of the Method That Can Capture the Phenomenal Level?
• The Multilevel Modeling of Consciousness
• Implications of Modeling Consciousness
• Models of Nonhuman Phenomenology
• The Connection between the Phenomenal and the Nonphenomenal
• Summary

Part VI: The Function and Causal Powers of Consciousness

22. Zombies in the Brain: Information That Bypasses Consciousness
• Blindsight
• Prosopagnosia
• Unilateral Neglect
• Implicit Object-Oriented Action
• Other Types of Implicit Knowledge
• Dissociations and Multilevel Mechanistic Explanation
• The Nature of the Nonconscious Zombie Systems
• The Nature of Consciousness in the Light of the Dissociations
• The Causal Powers of Implicit Information
• Summary

23. Zombies and Automatic Behavior
• What Counts as Evidence for the Loss of Consciousness?
• Degrees of Zombiehood
• Sleep-Related Dissociations of Consciousness and Behavior
• Automatic Behavior during Epileptic Seizures
• Automatic Behaviors from a Neuropsychological Perspective
• Summary

24. The Biological Function of Dreaming
• What Is a Biological Function?
• Traces of the Biological Function of Dreaming
• The Effect of a Traumatic Experience on Dream Content
• Threat-Simulation Responses in the Modern World
• Real Threats as Cues That Activate the Threat-Simulation System
• Selection Pressures and Ancestral Threats
• Threat Simulation in the Dreams of Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers
• Dream Production and Threat Simulation
• Why Do We Dream about "Current Concerns?"
• The Mechanisms behind Posttraumatic Nightmares
• Threat Simulation as a Biological Defense System
• The Threat-Simulation Theory Tested
• Summary

Notes
References
Author Index
Subject Index