Chapter 3
Consciousness: The great mystery
You
are welcome to skip this chapter if neuroscience holds no interest. The fact
is, though, we have gained a wealth of knowledge about the human brain in
recent decades - including what section is generally responsible for what
function. Yet we still don’t know how our brains give rise to consciousness. Odd,
isn’t it? You surely have a sense of your own consciousness. You have a sense
of yourself. If you’ve had anesthesia, you’ve been able to differentiate
between being “under” and being fully awake. Yet how consciousness
arises is still a mystery. Let’s define the term.
Human
consciousness is the subjective experience of being aware. It is sensations,
thoughts, emotions, and a sense of self. Thomas Nagel (1974) proposed the
following test to determine whether an entity is conscious. “What’s it like to be
a/an (insert entity)?” For example, if there is an answer to the question
“What’s it like to be a cat?” then we can say a cat is conscious. “What’s it like
to be a rock?” in contrast elicits no sensible answer. Hence, a rock is not
conscious.
Consciousness
is said to have three dimensions. 1) The ability to experience (e.g., to taste
sugar), 2) to make decisions, and 3) to be self-aware.
The
“Hard Problem” of consciousness runs parallel to our considerations in the
previous chapter. The difficulty is trying to explain how and why subjective
experience arises from objective brain activity. Answer this question, and
you’ll have your photo on the cover of Scientific American. You will have achieved
scientific immortality.
As
you can imagine, there are theories of consciousness. One posits that it is a
mental “workspace” integrating information across specialized brain modules.
Another is that it corresponds to the level of integrated information a system
can generate. Yet another is that it
arises when mental states are represented by higher-order reflective processes.
The description most appealing to me is
that consciousness arises from dynamically shifting patterns of coordinated
neural activity across widely distributed brain networks. What enters conscious
awareness is not simply the most active region, but the information that
becomes globally integrated and available to multiple systems - perception,
memory, emotion, and action. As relevance changes, these patterns rapidly
reorganize. What we don't yet understand is why this coordinated neural
activity feels like something from the inside.
Why
is an understanding of consciousness important? Because it defines who we are
as sentient beings. It is the basis of free will, morality, creativity, and our
sense of meaning. Because of it, we can remember the past (and learn from it),
imagine the future (and plan for it), and empathize with others (and build
relationships). Moral and ethical questions about AI, animal rights, and medical
practices ride on the question of who or what is conscious.
For
the sake of this book, let’s use the definition that it is “awareness of
internal and external existence”, humbly accept the fact that we don’t yet know how
it arises, yet view it as a precious gift given to us by nature and/or God.
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