Biology of mind: in search of its fundamental premises
Alejandro Villaseñor Becerra
General Hospital 196, Mexican Institute of Social Security
biology.mind@gmail.com
Abstract
The last frontier of the biological sciences—their ultimate challenge—is to understand the biological basis of consciousness and the mental processes by which we perceive, act, learn, and remember. However, biological sciences lack of an explicit and reflective framework from which biologists of mind can build a unified theory of mental life. Nowadays, there is no biological framework that offers a coherent scheme to explain the beginnings of mental life and how it works. Although Edelman (2003) and Crick and Koch (2003) respectively have proposed a biological framework, it is necessary to begin by considering other point of views, for example: social psychology and theology. With the aim to build a unified biological framework of mental life, the Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system was applied. The results obtained from this inquiry system have permitted to propose four fundamental premises:1) Everything comes from the expansion of the Universe, 2) Energy and any kind of information belong to the same reality, 3) Mental life is governed by laws of nature, and 4) Subjectivity is not the defining characteristic of consciousness but intentionality.
*APA citation: Villaseñor, B.A. 2011. Biology of mind: in search of its
fundamental premises. Unpublished research report, Mexican Institute of
Social Security, Ecatepec, México.
Copyright Registered number 03-2011-031811391200-01
INTRODUCTION
The last frontier of the biological sciences—their ultimate challenge—is to understand the biological basis of consciousness and the mental processes by which we perceive, act, learn, and remember (Kandel, 2000). However, biological sciences lack of an explicit and reflective framework from which biologists of mind can build a unified theory of mental life. Nowadays, there is no biological framework that offers a coherent scheme to explain how mental life began and how mental life works. Instead of having just one framework, there are many theories about mind and consciousness, which come as well from at least a dozen of major but conflicting schools. For example, neuropsychology, cognitive science and social psychology (Wilber, 1997). Some of these theories have been trying to specify the parallelism in between neurological mechanisms and conscious experience often with the purpose showing that this parallelism can explain the features of consciousness. Others have focused on the computational tasks that conscious processes can be able to perform, most of the time, making reference to the putative functions of consciousness in the control of behavior. A third group of theories have addressed the possible social origins and roles of consciousness (Zeman, 2001). Thus, a unified biological framework is necessary to explain the special singularities of conscious life, which has been attracting fierce interest, and debate among philosophers of mind, because it is difficult for some of them to see how consciousness might be explained in reductionist physical terms (Kandel, 2000).
Although Edelman (2003) and Crick and Koch (2003) respectively have proposed a biological framework, it is necessary to begin by building a biological framework from fundamental premises which favor a unified and coherent scheme to explain mental life in the near future.
In order to find the fundamental premises of a possible unified biological framework on mental life the Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system was applied. The results obtained from this source have permitted to propose four fundamental premises necessary to build a unified biological framework.
Many theories of mind and consciousness were examined (Antovic, 2003; Alcaraz, 2007; Chalmers, 1996; Churchland, 2007; Crick & Koch, 1998; Diaz, 2007; From, 1985; Gallagher, 2008; Gray, 1995; Kasprow & Scotton, 1999; Leontiev, 1973; Maturana, 2005; Newberg, D’Aquilliin & Rause, 2003; Paz, 1982; Saper, Iversen & Frackowiak, 2000; Scotton, 1998; Timasheff, 1961; Velmans, 1995; Wilber, 1997 & Zeman, 2001) in order to find the fundamental premises from which theses theories sustain disciplines such as cognitive science and neurobiology. These reviewed theories can be roughly resumed in four fundamental premises: 1) Consciousness operates as a physical thing, 2) Consciousness does not operate as a physical thing, 3) The way consciousness operates is beyond our comprehension and, 4) Functioning mind and functioning brains are both sides of the same physicochemical coin. In 2001 Adam Zeman made a review about this subject and resumed the main philosophical contenders in relation to three key intuitions: i) The first intuition is that consciousness is a robust phenomenon which deserves to be explained rather than being explained away, ii) The second intuition is that consciousness is bound up with our physical being and iii) The third intuition is that consciousness makes a difference between simple motor behaviors such walking or eating and the complex cognitive actions that we believe are quintessentially human, such as thinking and creating works arts.
Chalmers has reported in 1996 that standard methods of neuroscience and cognitive science do not work in addressing the subjectivity of consciousness which deserves to be explained by four roughly premises: i) Conscious experience exists, ii) Conscious experience is not logically supervenient on the physical, iii) If there are phenomena that are not logically supervenient on the physical facts, then materialism is false and iv) The physical domain is causally closed.
Conscious life has an insubstantial component called subjectivity or qualia. The scientific challenge of conscious life is this subjectivity: the experience of the redness of red, the painfulness of pain and so on. Up to now, no one has produced any plausible explanation as to how the subjectivity of conscious could arise from the actions of the brain (Crick & Koch, 2003).
Besides subjectivity, conscious life has other two dominant features: unity and intentionality. The unitary nature of consciousness refers to the fact that our brain experiences come to us as a unified, integrated and constructed whole (Kandel, 2000). And the central feature of intentionality is its semantic aspect (Chalmers, 1996). Intentionality refers to the fact that consciousness is generally, but not always, about objects or events (Edelman, 2003).
Although the subjectivity of conscious life seems to be a properly scientific subject as photosynthesis and motion are, it cannot be addressed by the usual scientific methods (Chalmers, 1996). For this reason, I decided first to apply the Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system, instead of the scientific method, with the aim of finding the fundamental premises of a unified biological framework in the near future.
Finally, in this work a premise is a fundamental assumption. For example, the main fundamental assumption of eliminativism is that nobody is conscious in the phenomenal sense (Chalmers, 1996). Therefore a premise in this sense may be right o wrong.
METHOD
Six specific objectives (SOs) were made in order to reach the general objective:
General Objective. Find the fundamental premises of a possible unified biological framework on mental life.
SO1. Record the main premises related to how consciousness works,
SO2. Group the main premises related to how consciousness works into inductive conclusions.
SO3. Make inductive conclusions out of inductive conclusions by grouping the previous inductive conclusions related to how consciousness works.
SO4. Infer general inductive conclusions by the last inductive conclusions related to how consciousness works.
SO5. Describe what the nature of consciousness is and
SO6. Describe where comes from the nature of consciousness.
From the SO1 to the SO4 the Leibnizian and Lockean inquiry systems were applied in combination with the logic called inductive reasoning. The Leibnizian and Lockean inquiry systems belong to the Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system.
Specific objectives SO5 and SO6 were reached by the following proximate questions:
PQ1. What is the nature of consciousness?
PQ2. Where does the nature of consciousness come from?
The Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system
According to Carbajal and Cabrera (1985) Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system is a combination of the inquiry systems derived from the philosophy of Leibniz, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and Singer. The strength of the Singerian-Churchmanian inquirer lies in its broad modeling style for tackling a problem. This strength derives from its holistic nature which is done by constantly attempting to ‘sweep in’ new variables and additional components to broaden its base of concern. Since this is an open inquiry system, Singerian-Churchmanian inquirers generally do not give final answers to questions. In fact, the Singerian-Churchmanian inquirer is concerned with raising and building explicitly in the process a self-reflective component to resolve the issues pertaining to the required task (Kisthy & Mohammadi, 2007).
Leibnizian inquiry system
This inquiry system is based on the philosophy of Gottfried W. Leibniz (1646-1716).
His philosophy is based on the premise that ‘truth is analytical,’ and is best suited for solving problems relating to the physical sciences (Kisthy & Mohammadi, 2007). The Leibnizian inquirer looks for the analytic-deductive assumptions made in the sciences which consider the world as a machine (Carbajal & Cabrera, 1985).
Kantian Inquiry System:
This inquiry system follows the writings of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and is a mixture of the Leibnizian and Lockean approaches in the sense that it contains both theoretical and empirical components. The Kantian inquiry system is a ‘multiple realities’ approach. One of the most important ways in which it differs from the Analytical-Deductive and the Consensual-Inductive systems is that the Kantian inquiry system does not assume that there is only one way to define an important problem.
Lockean Inquiry System:
Relying on the idea of agreement as the sole or major principle for producing reliable information, this inquiry system is based on the philosophies of John Locke (1632-1704). Lockean reasoning is experimental and consensual, using empirical information, gathered from external sources, for building a representation of the world. It is inductive because the system attempts to infer a general conclusion from a limited set of observations. In essence in this system, inquirers learn by observing the world, sharing observations, categorizing new knowledge, and creating a consensus about what has been observed.
Inductive reasoning
Scientists use two types of systematic thought processes: deduction and induction (Solomon, Berg & Martin, 2008). In this paper I use inductive reasoning.
Discovery science is based on inductive reasoning which can lead to general principles from a large number of specific observations. The careful observations of discovery science and the inductive conclusions they sometimes produce are fundamental to our understanding of nature (Campbell, Reece, Taylor, Simon & Dickey, 2009).
Proximate questions
Behavioral ecologists do ask both proximate and ultimate questions. In this paper I use proximate questions.
Proximate questions are concerned with the immediate reason for a behavior _how it is triggered by stimuli, what physiological or anatomical mechanisms play a role, and what underlying genetic factors are at work. Usually, proximate questions help us to understand how a specific behavior occurs (Campbell et al., 2009).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The specific objective SO1 was reached by applying the Leibnizian inquiry system.
1. Kandel (1999) says that “classical
conditioning is a superb paradigm for analyzing how knowledge can move from being unconscious to entering consciousness” (p.510-511).
Behavioral premise 1. Consciousness arises from unconscious mental processes.
2. Antović (2003) says that cognitive scientists are typically materialistic and quite often monistic, they have proposed a direct, “even one-to-one correspondence between the mind and the brain (p.416).
Cognitive premise 2. There is a correspondence one-to-one between the consciousness and the brain.
3. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in his introduction to The Bhagavad-gita says: “It is not that consciousness is generated by the association of matter. That is a mistaken idea. The theory that consciousness develops under certain circumstances of material combination is not accepted in the Bhagavad-gita”. (p. 18 e-version and p.11 Spanish version).
Theological premise 3. Consciousness does not arise from the physical and it is not itself physical.
4. Chalmers (1996) considers that “Conscious experience arise from the physical according to some laws of nature, but is not itself physical.” (p. 161).
Naturalistic Dualistic premise 4. Consciousness is governed by laws of nature in spite of being not itself physical.
5. Chalmers (1996) assures that introspective consciousness can not explain phenomenal consciousness. He says that:
Dennett (1991) spends much of his book outlining a detailed cognitive model, which he puts forward as an explanation of consciousness. On the face of it, the model is centrally a model of the capacity of a subject to verbally report a mental state. It might thus yield an explanation of reportability, of introspective consciousness , and perhaps of other aspects of awareness, but nothing in the model provides an explanation of phenomenal consciousness (although Dennett would put things differently) (p. 30).
Introspective premise 5. Consciousness can be verbally reported by a subject.
6. Kandel (1999) says that:
According to Freud, an individual is not aware of almost all of the mental processing events themselves yet can have ready conscious access to many of them by an effort of attention. From this perspective, most of mental life is unconscious much of the time and becomes conscious only as sensory percepts: as words and images (p.509).
Psychoanalytic premise 6. The way consciousness works is not essential to explain behavior.
7. Penrose and Hameroff (1995) say that:
“Aspects of quantum theory (e.g. quantum coherence) and of the suggested physical phenomenon of quantum wave function `self-collapse' (objective reduction: OR - Penrose, 1994) are essential for consciousness, and occur in cytoskeletal microtubules (MTs) and other structures within each of the brain's neurons” (p.6).
Quantum premise 7. Consciousness works according to physical and quantum laws.
8. Churchland (2007) favors “the hypothesis that mental functions map onto a certain kind of physical organization. In other words, that they are brain activities” (p.185).
Neurophilosophic premise 8. Consciousness operates onto a certain kind of physical organization.
9. Crick and Koch (1998) consider that “It is probable that at any moment some active neuronal processes in your head correlate with consciousness, while others do not” (p.97).
Neuroscientific premise 9. Consciousness and unconsciousness processes can operate at any time.
10. Crick and Koch (2003) say that “We are attempting to find the neural correlate (s) of consciousness (NCC), in the hope that when we can explain the NCC in causal terms, this will make the problem of qualia clearer”. (p.119).
Neuroscientific premise 10. The way consciousness works is correlated with certain areas of the brain.
11. Crick and Koch (1990) expose their principal idea:
Our basic idea is that consciousness depends crucially on some form of rather short-term memory and also on some form of serial attentional mechanism. This attentional mechanism helps sets of the relevant neurons to fire in a coherent semioscillatory way, probably at a frequency in the 40-70 Hz range, so that a temporary global unity is imposed on neurons in many different parts of the brain. These oscillations then activate short-term (working) memory. (p.263).
Neuroscientific premise 11. The way consciousness works can be related with short-term memory, and also, on certain way to a serial attentional mechanism.
12. Chalmers (1996) reported that from the point of view of eliminativism “Nobody is conscious in the phenomenal sense” (p.161).
Materialistic premise 12. Phenomenal consciousness does not exist anywhere.
13. Díaz (2007) accepts that: “La conciencia no es un objeto concreto, una sustancia o una esencia, es fundamentalmente un proceso viviente que se despliega en el tiempo (p. 415).
Biological premise 13. Consciousness operates in living beings and can evolve.
14. Diaz (2007) comments that “Jean Peaget (1976) derivó una teoría de la construcción de la conciencia a partir de la coordinación de la información inconsciente y periférica hasta la abstracción, representación y formación de conceptos.” (p.370).
Developmental psychological premise 14. Consciousness arises from unconscious information.
15. Fromm (1985) mentions that:
Los hechos estructurales contribuyen a la formación de la conciencia de cada uno de los grupos específicos en que se diferencia la sociedad, y la conciencia a su vez llega a transformar los hechos estructurales erigiéndose así en sujeto del proceso, y no únicamente en su resultado. Así, los hombres son actores y autores de la historia (p.14).
Social psychological premise 15. Consciousness arises from the social contexts and can transform contexts.
16. Gray (1995) assumes that “ Hardly anyone today doubts that consciousness is in some way a product of the brain, a product that is intimately connected with the brain's role in behaviour and the processing of information.” (p.659).
Neuronal informational premise 16. Consciousness is connected with the neuronal processing of information.
17. Kasprow and Scotton (1999) says that Jung introduced “The principle of trust in one’s psychological process, with the implication that consciousness has within itself inherent tendencies toward growth and evolution.” (p.13).
Psychological premise 17. Consciousness can change and evolve.
18. Leontiev (1973) says that:
“La vida social, condición primaria del nacimiento de la conciencia, determina las reacciones del individuo y lo desprende de la naturaleza física, lo arranca de la experiencia inmediata y lo libera de ella, creando un nuevo plan, un nuevo reino, el del pensamiento, superando los datos inmediatos (p.78).
Sociological premise 18. Consciousness operates in social contexts and can give freedom.
19. Maturana (2005) assures that “El fenómeno de la autoconciencia tiene lugar, y sólo puede tener lugar, en el lenguaje; y sólo el lenguaje constituye en el dominio animal el mecanismo operacional que hace posible tal distinción” (p.97-98).
Cognitive premise 19. Self-Consciousness operates by the language.
20. Newberg, D’Aquilli and Rause (2003) report that in brain: “Los patrones visuales preliminares discernidos por el área visual primaria no se pueden percibir por la mente consciente, pero existe evidencia de que el cerebro puede percatarse de ellos a un nivel inconsciente.” (p.30).
Neuroscientific premise 20. Consciousness operates from unconscious states in the brain.
21. Panksepp was interviewed by Gallagher (2008) and said that “Functioning brains and functioning minds are two sides of the same complex physicochemical coin.” (p.?).
Physicochemical premise 21. Consciousness and brain operate in the same way.
22. Panksepp was interviewed by Gallagher (2008) and said that “Subcortical areas can sustain a primitive form of consciousness—we call it affective consciousness (perhaps there is also a primitive perceptual consciousness) — with no assistance from the cortex.” (p.?).
Neuroscientific premise 22. The function of consciousness depends on its evolution.
23. Paz (1982) as a poet wrote that:
Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone: it is the opening of an impalpable, transparent wall –that of our consciousness- […] The adolescent […] is astonished at the fact of his being, and this astonishment leads to reflection: as he leans over the river of his consciousness, he asks himself if the face that appears there, disfigured by water, is his own. The singularity of his being, which is pure sensation in children, becomes a problem and a question (p.9).
Literary premise 23. The function of consciousness depends on adolescent age and emotion.
24. Saper, Iversen and Frackowiak (2000) mention that John Hughlings Jackson argued that “consciousness emerges from the operation of the association cortices. Patients with focal lesions of association areas have selective and quite restricted loss of self-awareness for certain classes of stimuli while maintaining awareness for others.” (p.363).
Neuroscientific premise 24. Consciousness works by association cortices of the brain.
25. The 14th Dalai Lama says that: “All phenomena arise dependently” (p.49) and explain that “The consciousness involved in looking at a vase does not have spatial parts because it is not physical, but it exists as a continuum of moments” (p.57).
Buddhists premise 25. All phenomena arise dependently even consciousness.
26. Timasheff (1961) tells that “ La imitación, ley general de la conducta humana, suele ser inconsciente. Como la conciencia y la voluntad por lo general son débiles, suele predominar la tendencia a la imitación.” (p.159).
Sociological premise 26. The function of consciousness is submitted by unconscious behavior.
27. Velmans (1995) accept that:
Yet, as Gray rightly points out, consciousness exists - and there are aspects of consciousness (qualia, what it is like to be something, how things appear from a first-person perspective) that do not seem reducible to either a physical or functional state of the brain (p.703).
Philosophical premise 27. The way consciousness works can not be reduced to either a physical or functional state of the brain.
28. Wilber (1997) says that:
“Consciousness not as a single entity but as a developmentally unfolding process with a substantially different architecture at each of its stages of growth, and thus an understanding of consciousness demands an investigation of the architecture at each of its levels of unfolding” (p.2).
Developmental psychological premise 28. The way consciousness works depends on its stages of growth.
29. Wilber (1997) reports that: “Subtle energies research has postulated that there exist subtler types of bio- energies beyond the four recognized forces of physics (strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetic, gravitational), and that these subtler energies play an intrinsic role in consciousness and its activity (p.3).
Physical premise 29. The function of consciousness depends on subtle energies.
30. Zeman (2001) finds three basic intuitions:
Several basic intuitions underlie social theories of consciousness. The first […] refers to knowledge shared with another. […] A second, related, intuition is that the sharing of knowledge with oneself, in consciousness, and the sharing of knowledge with others, in social exchanges, are interdependent. […] A third source of social theories of awareness is the idea that language is vital to human consciousness (p. 1281).
Sociological premise 30. Consciousness depends on the kind of social contexts.
In order to reach the specific objective SO2 the Lockean inquiry system was applied by grouping the thirty premises got above into categories. I came to the following results:
Behavioral premise 1. Consciousness arises from unconscious mental processes.
Psychoanalytic premise 6. The way consciousness works is not essential to explain behavior.
Neuroscientific premise 9. consciousness and unconsciousness can operate at any time.
Sociological premise 26. The function of consciousness is submitted by unconscious behavior.
Developmental psychological premise 14. Consciousness arises from unconscious information.
Neuroscientific premise 20. Consciousness operates from unconscious states in the brain.
IC 1. The conscious states can be identified due to the presence of unconscious states
Cognitive premise 2. There is a correspondence one-to-one between the consciousness and the brain.
Naturalistic Dualistic premise 4. Consciousness is governed by laws of nature.
Quantum premise 7. Consciousness works according to physical and quantum laws.
Neurophilosophic premise 8. Consciousness operates onto a certain kind of physical organization.
Neuronal correlated premise 10. The way consciousness works is correlated with certain areas of the brain.
Neuroscientific premise 11. The way consciousness works can be related with short-term memory, and also, on certain way to a serial attentional mechanism.
Neuronal informational premise 16. Consciousness is connected with the neuronal processing of information.
Physicochemical premise 21. Consciousness and brain operate in the same way.
Neuroscientific premise 24. Consciousness works by association cortices of the brain.
Buddhists premise 25. All phenomena arise dependently even consciousness.
Physical premise 29. The function of consciousness depends on subtle energies.
IC 2. Consciousness is governed by laws of nature.
Biological premise 13. Consciousness operates in living beings and can evolve.
Psychological premise 17. Consciousness can change and evolve.
Neuroscientific premise 22. The function of consciousness depends on its evolution.
Literary premise 23. The function of consciousness depends on adolescent age and emotion.
Developmental psychological premise 28. The way consciousness works depends on its stages of growth.
IC 3. Consciousness is a process.
Social psychological premise 15. Consciousness arises from the social contexts and can transform contexts.
Sociological premise 18. Consciousness operates in social contexts and can give freedom.
Sociological premise 30. The way consciousness works depends on the kind of social contexts.
IC 4. There is a relationship between consciousness and social contexts.
Introspective premise 5. Consciousness can be verbally reported by a subject.
Cognitive premise 19. Self-Consciousness operates by the language.
IC 5. It is possible to access to consciousness by language.
Theological premise 3. Consciousness does not arise from the physical and it is not itself physical.
Philosophical premise 27. The way consciousness works can not be reduced to either a physical or functional state of the brain.
IC 6. Consciousness might have been confused with regard to the nature of semantic information which is insubstantial.
Materialistic premise 12. Phenomenal consciousness does not exist anywhere.
IC 7. If conscious experience does not exist then the unconscious mental processes either.
The IC7 was canceled due to the eliminative materialistic philosopher Churchland “concedes […] the subjective of consciousness” (Kandel, 2000, p. 398).
With the aim to reach the specific objective SO3, I made inductive conclusions out of inductive conclusions by grouping the seven inductive conclusions obtained before. I came to the following results:
IC1. The conscious states can be identified due to the presence of unconscious states.
IC2. Consciousness is governed by laws of nature.
IC3. Consciousness is a process.
IC4. There is a relationship between consciousness and social contexts.
IC5. It is possible to access to consciousness by language.
IC6. Consciousness might have been confused with regard to the nature of semantic information which is insubstantial.
IIC 1. Conscious and unconscious states process information value only in context.
IIC 2. Conscious and unconscious states are governed by laws of nature.
Finally, in order to reach the specific objective SO4, I inferred two general inductive conclusions (GIC) from IIC1 to IIC2 and the results are:
GIC 1. Conscious and unconscious states process information value only in context and are governed by laws of nature.
GIC 2. Subjectivity of conscious experience is not its defining characteristic but intentionality. Thus, subjectivity of conscious experience is an epiphenomenon.
With respect to GIC2, Chalmers (1996) anticipated the biggest worry about his dualistic nature of the subjectivity of conscious experience. He recognizes that dualistic nature of consciousness implies a certain irrelevance of phenomenal properties in the explanation of behavior that could lead to epiphenomenalism, although this is not automatic. Thus, subjectivity of conscious experience could be an epiphenomenon without importance in terms of evolutionary adaptation or learning processes.
The specific objective SO5 was reached by searching the answer for the following proximate question:
PQ 1. What is the nature of consciousness?
Chalmers (1996) and Kandel (2000) think that the nature of the subjectivity of conscious experience is a mystery.
Chalmers says that:
We have good reason to believe that consciousness arises from physical systems such as brains, but we have little idea how it arises, or why it exists at all […] we entirely in the dark about how consciousness fits into the natural order. (p.xi).
And Kandel tells that “The special character of consciousness attracts fierce interest and debate among philosophers of mind because it is difficult for some to see how consciousness might be explained in reductionist physical terms” (p.396).
If they are right, there is no yet an answer to the question what is the nature of consciousness? And there is no either dictionary that can give us a straightforward characterization of consciousness. So, nobody knows what the nature of consciousness is. As Chalmers would say “nobody knows what the nature of qualia is”.
Biologists view conscious life as transient while theologians see it as eternal. An unbiased definition for conscious life would respect both view until one or both were eliminated by evidence.
Chalmers (1996) recognizes that reductive functionalism is the most serious materialistic option to study consciousness. According to GC1 and GC2, I am a reductive functionalist, because intentionality plays a certain role within a context and because phenomenal properties of consciousness are treated exactly the same way as psychological properties, such as learning and categorization. That is true, since I found that such phenomenal properties called subjectivity could be epiphenomena.
The specific objective SO6 was reached by searching the answer for the following second proximate question.
PQ 2. ¿Where does the nature of consciousness come from?
If I assume the theory of Big Bang is true, consciousness as it is known could not appear before life. Life and consciousness are the result of the expansion of the universe. During this expansion appeared matter, energy and information which obey the laws of physics. Chalmers (1996) sustains that “conscious experience arises from the physical […] but is not itself physical” (p.161). If consciousness is not itself physical but arises from the physical then consciousness is related to information, why? Because semantic information (as opposed to syntactic information) is not itself physical either; Croft (2007) has found that:
Attempts to understand how information content can be included in an accounting of the energy flux of the biosphere have led to the conclusion that, in information transmission, one component, the semantic content, or “the meaning of the message,” adds no thermodynamic burden over and above costs arising from coding, transmission and translation. In biology, semantic content has two major roles. For all life forms, the message of the genotype encoded in DNA specifies the phenotype, and hence the organism that is tested against the real world through the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution. For human beings, communication through language and similar abstractions provides an additional supra-phenotypic vehicle for semantic inheritance, which supports the cultural heritages around which civilizations revolve. The following three postulates provide the basis for discussion of a number of themes that demonstrate some important consequences. (i) Information transmission through either pathway has thermodynamic components associated with data storage and transmission. (ii) The semantic content adds no additional thermodynamic cost. (iii) For all semantic exchange, meaning is accessible only through translation and interpretation, and has a value only in context (p.1).
If Croft is right, then dualists _as Chalmers and Descartes_ are right as well, by regarding an insubstantial component within conscious experience but this insubstantial component is not the soul but semantic information. Churchland (2007) says that “For all dualists, a pressing and unsolved problem concerned how the non-physical soul and the physical brain could possibly interact, given their lack of shared properties” (p.186) but maybe Panksepp interviewed by Gallagher (2010) and Croft (2007) have the answer when the first says that: “Functioning brains and functioning minds are two sides of the same complex physicochemical coin” (p.26). And the second says that:
An understanding of topics such dualism, the élan vital, the status of hypothesis in science, memetics, the nature of consciousness, the role of semantic processing in the survival of societies, and Popper's three worlds, require recognition of an insubstantial component. By recognizing a necessary linkage between semantic content and a physical machinery, we can bring these perennial problems into the framework of a realistic philosophy. It is suggested, following Popper, that the ~4 billion years of evolution of the biosphere represents an exploration of the nature of reality at the physicochemical level, which, together with the conscious extension of this exploration through science and culture, provides a firm epistemological underpinning for such a philosophy (p.2).
CONCLUSIONS
From the two general inductive conclusions (GC1 and GC2) and two proximate questions I proposed the following fundamental premises (FPs) for building a biological framework of mental life in the near future:
FP1. Everything comes from the expansion of the universe.
FP2. Energy and any kind of information (i.e. semantic information) belong to the same reality.
FP3. Conscious and unconscious states can only process valuable information in context and are governed by laws of nature.
FP4. Intentionality is the defining characteristic of conscious experience since subjectivity could be an epiphenomenon.
Due to the Singerian-Churchmanian inquiry system is an open system, these fundamental premises could change.
Finally, artificial life and artificial intelligence could explain together why intentionality is the defining feature of consciousness, but not subjectivity.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to Lic. Fernando O. Figueroa Calix for grammatical comments on this paper.
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