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What is consciousness? What does it mean to be a conscious being, a subject?
Questions of this type have long been fundamental themes in philosophy, psychology and
psychiatry. However, over the last decade such questions have increasingly also attracted interest from researchers in a wider range of
disciplines.
A notable feature of recent research on consciousness is that it is becoming increasingly
interdisciplinary.
Can science explain consciousness?
At present one of the crucial problems is the question of whether consciousness can be
naturalised, that is to say, explained by science, and if it can, then in what
way.
At first sight there seems to be an enormous jump from the neural level, which can be described and analysed scientifically from an outside observer’s point of
view, to the experiential level, exemplified by our feeling of nostalgia, our experience of a
sunset, or our reflections over the political situation in today’s Denmark.
Despite the difference between the two levels, many people are nevertheless of the opinion that the first can explain the
second, in other words, that the brain holds the key to a scientific understanding of
consciousness.
But is it really possible to reduce the experiential level to the neurophysiological
level? Can the neurophysiological level really provide an exhaustive explanation of the experiential
level?
Two opposed lines of research at the University of Copenhagen
The RPA includes teams of scientists seeking to show that such a complete reduction is
possible, and also teams of scientists seeking to show that conscious mental life must be understood as an independent
phenomenon, in other words, that consciousness cannot be reduced to atomic, molecular or cellular brain
processes.
The attempt to naturalise consciousness is thus a contentious area, and by no means just an empirical matter. We are not simply dealing with a question that can be solved once and for all by experimental research, but with a question that involves theoretical deliberations and conceptual clarification and
analysis.
It also raises questions of a more fundamental and philosophical nature. Philosophy may provide analyses and concepts that would be useful to empirical consciousness research (in
neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology) in clarifying its own theoretical basis.
Correspondingly, empirical research may force the philosophy of consciousness to
refine, revise or indeed abandon its time-honoured assumptions concerning, for
example, the significance of consciousness or the unity of the self.
Consciousness in a social, cultural and historical context
Pursuing an interest in the relation between neurophysiological processes and conscious experiences is one way of approaching the mind-body problem. But it is certainly not the only
way.
There is more to the body than the brain, and in the humanities, research into this complex of problems has often resulted in an interest in what may be called “the embedded and embodied mind”. The brain exists in a body that lives in a
world, and much attention has been devoted to the question of whether consciousness must necessarily be thought of as
embodied, whether it is necessarily embedded (or situated) in a social, cultural and historical
context.
Interdisciplinary research a necessity
A substantial, innovative and interdisciplinary research effort is necessary. Empirical and theoretical research can cross-fertilise each other across traditional academic
boundaries.
Relevant links:
Read more about the philosophy of consciousness and subjectivity research at: Center for Subjectivity Research
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