By Eduardo E. Ochoa, Fielding Graduate University, June 30, 2006
Introduction
The Scientific Method requires an objective account to the explanation of phenomena, and through a rigid and disciplined structure, pursues the explanation of the Universe through the definition of physical laws. As part of the scientific approach to the view of the Universe, Classical Materialism defines that the Universe is a large mechanism composed of tiny particles behaving like electrically charged billiard balls, and if the mass, speed, spin and charge of these particles are known, then the behavior of the Universe can be predicted in all cases. Given that animals and humans are composed of these tiny particles as well, their behavior should also be predictable, and perfectly explainable by the physical laws.
Classical materialism was embraced in the psychology field by the behaviorists, a school of psychology/philosophy that was the main theory of thought accepted between the 1930’s and the 1960’s. For behaviorists, internal mental states do not exist, and even when at the beginning of the 20th century it was found that matter and energy were interchangeable, the materialistic view was not weakened, but if anything, it was strengthened.
Epiphenomenalism introduces the concept that consciousness and mental processes actually exist, eliminating some of the absurd behavioristic claims, but determines that these are generated by the physical activities of the brain. This concept works against the biological evolution concept, since evolution indicates that biological systems do not carry characteristics that are not required for a good reason, and any additional feature that is a useless by-product is rapidly eliminated. Therefore, this concept points to the conclusion that consciousness should not be just a side effect of a physical phenomena but it must be required for the organism to evolve and survive.
Dualism maintains that there are two different entities in the universe, material objects and souls, and determines that mental experience is a feature that only humans possess. This philosophy goes in line with the predominant teachings of the church, and even today, is one of the main arguments that separate Science from Religion.
In science, consciousness studies are related to brain sciences, but until the 1980’s, the vast majority of the brain sciences paid no attention to consciousness, and even the term is seldom found in literature (most references to consciousness are made using the term “awareness”). In the last two decades, philosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists, clinicians, neuroscientists, and even engineers have published dozens of monographs and books aiming at “discovering”, “explaining” or “reconsidering” consciousness (Koch, 2004).
This writing analyzes some of the main scientific theories of Human Consciousness, particularly the ones under cognitive and neurobiological sciences, falling under the Materialistic view of the Universe, in contrast with the philosophical theories that fall
under the category of Dualism, and evaluates as well an alternative thesis to these traditional views.
Materialistic Views of Consciousness
Today’s version of materialism is known as physicalism, which is concerned with the laws of physics and information processing, and has grown out of describing the universe as a combination of interactions between particles into DNA codes, Artificial Intelligence computer instruction sets, networks and data structures.
Materialists attempt to approach consciousness in a scientific manner, and current studies focus on the sensory forms of awareness, which are categorized by Antonio Damasio, a neurologist from the University of Iowa, as core consciousness, differentiated from extended consciousness, where core consciousness is all about the here and now, while extended consciousness requires a sense of self- the self-referential aspect that for many people epitomizes consciousness-and of the past and the anticipated future (Koch, 2004). Sensory phenomena are removed from intentionality or “free-will”, which are concepts that are mainly philosophical when discussing consciousness, and the sensory phenomena analysis is done mostly by attempting to understand the neuronal basis of these activities (neuronal correlates of consciousness or NCC).
Gerald Edelman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1972, differentiates consciousness into primary consciousness, which refers to the presence of a reportable multimodal scene composed of perceptual and motor events, and higher-order consciousness, which involves referral of the contents of primary consciousness to interpretative semantics, including a sense of self, and in more advanced forms, the ability to explicitly construct past and future scenes (Edelman, 1989).
According to Searle, conscious states are caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain and are themselves higher-level features of the brain. When asking the question: does the claim that there is a causal relation between brain and consciousness commit us to a dualism of physical things and mental things? Searle answers a definite no. Brain processes cause consciousness but the consciousness they cause is not some extra substance or entity. It is just a higher-level feature of the whole system. The two crucial relationships between consciousness and the brain, then, can be summarized as follows: Lower level neuronal processes in the brain cause consciousness and consciousness is simply a higher level feature of the system that is made up of the lower level neuronal elements (King and Pribam, 1995).
One of the most important features of consciousness is subjectivity, and any biological theory must explain how a set of neurobiological processes can cause a system to be in the subjective state of sentience or awareness. There is a resistance to accept subjectivity as a ground floor, irreducible phenomenon of nature because since the 17th century, we have come to believe that science must be objective. Searle argues that this is a confusion of the epistemic objectivity of scientific investigation with the ontological objectivity of the typical subject matter in science in disciplines such as physics and chemistry. Science attempts to find objectivity in the epistemic sense when truths are seek that are not dependent on the particular point of view of the observer, therefore it is concluded that the reality investigated by science must be objective in the sense of existing independently of the experiences of the human individual, but if science is supposed to give an account of how the world works, and if subjective states of consciousness are part of the world, then we should seek an (epistemically) objective account of an (ontologically) subjective reality, the reality of subjective states of consciousness. What Searle argues is that we can have an epistemically objective science of a domain that is ontologically subjective (Searle, 1994).
According to the studies by Edelman and Tononi, conscious experience appears to be associated with neural activity that is distributed simultaneously across neuronal groups in many different regions of the brain. Consciousness is therefore not the prerogative of any one brain area; instead, its neural substrates are widely dispersed throughout the so-called thalamocortical system and associated regions. Second, to support conscious experience, a large number of groups of neurons must interact rapidly and reciprocally through the process called reentry. If these reentrant interactions are blocked, entire sections of consciousness disappear, and consciousness itself may shrink or split. If a large number of neurons in the brain start firing in the same way, reducing the diversity of the brain’s neuronal repertoires, as is the case in deep sleep and epilepsy, consciousness disappear (Edelman and Tononi, 2000). An integrative concept of consciousness must involve many brain regions as well as the interactions among them, along with the ability to interface with regions such as the hippocampus (for conscious episodic storage and recall) and the cerebellum (for conscious feedback control of fine motor skills).
Criteria for Consciousness
The scientific and medical index for human consciousness is the ability to report events with accuracy. Accurate report (AR), is the standard behavioral index for consciousness in humans, and is not limited to verbal responses, but includes eye-movements, in some cases of paralysis or lucid-dreaming conditions. However, even computers can produce an output that resembles AR, though few scientists would consider computers conscious on this basis (Seth, Baars and Edelman, 2005).
There are three basic physiological facts about consciousness:
– Irregular, low-amplitude brain activity,
– Involvement of the thalamocortical system, and
– Widespread brain activity
Waking consciousness is associated with low-level, irregular activity in the raw EEG, ranging from about 20 to 70 HZ, as discovered by Hans Berger in 1929, while unconscious states such as anesthesia, epileptic seizures, deep sleep and vegetative states after brain damage show predominance of slow, high-amplitude, and more regular waves under 4 HZ. This condition appears to be present in all mammals.
In all mammals as well, consciousness seems to be associated with the thalamus and cortex regions. In cases where an entire hemisphere of the brain s surgically removed, a form of blindsight can occur with no apparent loss of consciousness, but damage to the brainstem, including the thalamus, can affect the state of consciousness. The lower brainstem is involved in maintaining the state of consciousness while the cortex (interacting with thalamus) sustains conscious contents (Seth, Baars and Edelman, 2004).
Conscious scenes are associated with widespread brain activity. Experiments to date show that conscious sensory inputs generate brain activity that distributes from sensory cortex to parietal, prefrontal and medial-temporal regions, while the cortical representation become more limited when activities become routine, automatic and less conscious (Baars, 2002).
In general, Seth, Baars and Edelman summarize 17 widely recognized properties of consciousness:
EEG signature– Conscious EEG looks markedly different from unconscious states
Cortex and Thalamus– Consciousness depends on the thalamocortical complex, turned on and off by brainstem neuro-modulation.
Widespread brain activity– Conscious contents are associated with widespread brain activation related to the content. Unconscious stimulation evokes only local cortical activity.
Wide Range– Consciousness has an extraordinary range of different contents-perception, imagery, emotional feelings, inner speech, concepts, action-related ideas, and familiarity.
Informativeness– Consciousness may fade when signals become redundant.
Rapid adaptive and fleeting nature of conscious scenes– Immediate experience of the sensory past may last a few seconds.
Internal Consistency– While multiple meanings of most words are active for a brief time after presentation, only one becomes conscious at any moment. In general, of two mutually inconsistent stimuli presented simultaneously, only one can become conscious at a time.
Limited capacity and seriality– The capacity of consciousness at any given time seems limited to one consistent scene, and the flow of such scenes is serial.
Sensory Binding– The sensory brain is segregated by function such that different cortical areas are specialized to respond to different features such as shape, color, motion or smell. However, they get coordinated to generate the gestalts of ordinary conscious perception.
Self-attribution– Conscious experiences are always attributed to an experiencing self, the “observing self” as described by James.
Accurate reportability– Conscious contents are reportable by a wide range of voluntary responses, often with very high accuracy.
Subjectivity– Consciousness is marked by the existence of a private flow of events available only to the experiencing subject.
Focus-Fringe Structure– While consciousness tends to be thought of as a focal, clearly articulated set of contents, “fringe conscious” events, like feelings of familiarity, the tip-of-the-tongue experience, etc. are also important.
Facilitation of Learning– There is overwhelming evidence of learning of conscious episodes while there is little evidence for long-term learning of unconscious input.
Stability of contents– Conscious contents are impressively stable, given the variability of input that is dealt with. Even abstract contents such as beliefs, concepts, and the motivational self are remarkably stable over the years.
Allocentricity– Neural representations of external objects make use of diverse frames of reference. Conscious scenes, generally speaking, have allocentric character, though they have shaped by egocentric and other unconscious frameworks.
Conscious knowing and decision making– Consciousness is useful for knowing the world around us, as well as for knowing certain of our own internal processes. Conscious intentionality is particularly well suited for voluntary decision-making. (Seth et. al., 2005)
Subjectivity is one of the properties that appear to be the least probable to be testable in a given experiment, but rather subjectivity is a defining property of consciousness to which empirical results may be related. According to Seth, Baars and Edelman, the best to hope for is to indirectly infer subjectivity from a sufficiently well validated report in conjunction with a battery of consistent brain evidence (Seth et al. 2005). The position of attempting an objective, scientific description of subjective conscious scenes continues to be a source of disagreement in the scientific and philosophical community. Sometimes this is referred to as the “hard problem” of consciousness, being distinguished from the “easy problem” of describing the function of the brain during conscious and unconscious states (Chalmers, 1995).
The position of Neurology and Neurophysiology
As it has been described previously, most studies indicate that every conscious activity involves the activation or deactivation of large portions of the brain. Most neuroscientists agree that the function of the cerebral cortex is responsible, to a large extent, for the content of consciousness. Moreover, it appears that at least for short periods of time, consciousness is generated by the thalamocortical activity in autonomy from the rest of the brain. Conscious scenes experienced during dreaming may be, sometimes, indistinguishable from waking scenes, even though is known that the thalamocortical system is functionally disconnected from the external world in input and output during dreaming (Edelman and Tononi, 2000).
It is accepted that the activity of the reticular activating system is essential in maintaining the state of consciousness, and this system is important in determining whether we are awake or asleep. The observations of the performance of the thalamocortical system during wakefulness or during dreamless sleep have generated the suggestion that the reticular activating system might have a direct relation to conscious experiences, but even though the operation of this system is a prerequisite for consciousness to occur, it is mostly assumed that the role of this system is indirect and that the reticular system by itself does not actually generate consciousness. All that is explained is that its unique anatomical and physiological characteristics make the reticular activating system a natural candidate to ensure that distributed populations of neurons in the thalamocortical system fire in a way that is compatible with conscious experiences. With basis on some of these observations, a large-scale theory of brain function called Neural Darwinism was proposed by Edelman in 1978, and has since developed into one of the main scientific theories of consciousness (Seth and Baars, 2004).
Neural Darwinism
According to Neural Darwinism (ND), consciousness is entailed by reentrant interactions among neuronal populations in the thalamocortical system or ‘dynamic core”. The concept of reentry defines the recursive exchange of signals among neural areas across massively parallel reciprocal connections, which enables the spatiotemporal coordination of activity in different regions of the brain.
ND is a biological perspective of brain processes with basis on evolutionary theory and immunology that suggests that brain development is selectionist in nature, not instructionist, as it is the case with computers, which carry out explicit symbolic instructions. Selectionist processes have several main features, such as diversity, as it is the case with individual members of a species. These elements can reproduce or amplify and go through a selection process in which only some specific elements are maintained, and finally another feature of these systems is degeneracy, which is the ability of structurally different combinations of elements to perform the same function.
Edelman’s thesis of ND as an approach to consciousness is summarized as follows: “We propose that primary consciousness emerged in evolution when, through the appearance of new circuits mediating reentry, posterior areas of the brain that are involved in perceptual categorization were dynamically linked to anterior areas that are responsible for a value-based memory. With such means in place, an animal would be able to build a remembered present- a scene that adaptively links immediate or imagined contingencies to that animal’s previous history of value-driven behavior” (Edelman and Tononi, 2000).
The hypothesis of the “Dynamic Core” was proposed to support the conclusion that at any given time, only a subset of the neuronal groups in the human brain, although not a small subset, contributes to a conscious experience. Edelman and Tononi find unacceptable that certain local properties of neurons might hold the key to the explanation of consciousness, and believe that having a specific location in the brain, firing in a particular mode or at a particular frequency, being connected to certain neurons, or expressing a particular biochemical compound are not sufficient characteristics of neurons to give rise to a conscious experience. The Dynamic Core hypothesis determines what is special about the subsets of neuronal groups that perform a conscious experience and how they can be identified using two concepts:
1. – A group of neurons can contribute directly to conscious experience only if it is part of a distributed functional cluster that through reentrant interactions in the thalamocortical system achieves high integration in hundreds of milliseconds.
2. – To sustain conscious experience, it is essential that this functional cluster be highly differentiated, as indicated by high values of complexity.
A cluster of neurons that are strongly interacting among themselves and that have determined functional borders with rest of the brain at the time scale of fractions of a second is called a “Dynamic Core”, being this a process, not a thing or a place, and it is defined in terms of neural interactions, and not in terms of specific neural location, connectivity or activity (Edelman and Tononi, 2000).
The Debate against the Materialistic view proposed by the Neurosciences
Current scientific views mostly approach sensory forms of consciousness, and attempt to identify the neuronal processes that occur during visual awareness and image processing, while emotions, language, and the sense of self, among other more complicated activities, are ignored or neglected. In general, the scientific materialistic view argues that we do not presently know enough about the intricate functioning of the brain to establish the equivalence of specific, subjective mental processes, with specific, objective brain processes. Physicalists, such as Patricia Churchland maintain that we know too little about the brain at present to conclude that consciousness is a product of anything other than the brain functions. So, instead of drawing on scientific knowledge to argue that consciousness is just a product of the brain, such people argue that we should accept their belief on the basis of scientific ignorance! (Wallace, 2000).
Cognitive neuroscience is relevant to the explanation of phenomenal consciousness, because it is important for understanding the nature and detailed profile of our first-order perceptual contents. But since such contents can and do occur in the absence of phenomenal consciousness (since there is no perceived difference for the brain when looking at a physical object or when imagining the same object from memory) we may need to move beyond cognitive neuroscience in giving an account of the subjective feel of experience (Carruthers, 2000).
As Abraham Maslow once said, ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, then you start treating everything as if it were a nail.’ Materialist scientists in general, are used to seeing the world as made of atoms, and since in order for the worlds of mind and matter to interact need an energy exchange that has not been observed, then they deny the possibility of a dualistic theory. On the other hand, material realism assumes a universe with no spiritual meaning: mechanical, empty and lonely. Nobel Prize winner, Sir John Eccles rejects the materialistic view, saying that it never goes beyond vague generalities, and that materialists believe that the problems will be resolved when we have a more complete scientific understanding of the brain, perhaps in hundred years, a belief that Eccles ironically terms “promissory materialism” (Pratt, 1995). Eccles believes that this ‘impoverished and empty’ theory fails to account for ‘the wonder and mystery of the human self with its spiritual values, with its creativity, and with its uniqueness for each of us (Eccles, 1994)). In collaboration with the philosopher Sir Karl Popper, Eccles developed an alternative theory of mind, known as dualist-interactionism.
Dualist-Interactionism
Dualist-Interactionism defines that there is a nonmaterial mind or self which acts upon, and is influenced by, the material brain. There is also a mental world in addition to the physical world, and the two interact. However, Eccles differs from the traditional Cartesian Dualism by denying that the mind is a type of nonphysical entity, and defining that the mind merely belongs to a different world (Pratt, 1995). The theory also explains that the mind must be comprised of finer grades of energy-substance, which coincides with Rupert Sheldrake’s hypothesis of formative causation, in which the nature of things depends on fields, called morphic fields. Morphic fields, like the known fields of physics, are non-material regions of influence extending in space and continuing in time. They are localized within and around the system they organize (Sheldrake, 1988). Sheldrake argues that behavioral morphic fields influence habits and mental morphic fields influence thoughts. Sheldrake also suggests that our conscious self may be a higher level of our being which interacts with lower fields and, through them with the physical brain and body (Pratt, 1995).
While opponents to Eccles argue that mind-brain interactions would infringe the law of conservation of energy, he includes in his theory the work of the quantum physicist Friedrich Beck, demonstrating that the mind-brain action does not violate the conservation of energy if explained by quantum physics and the latest discoveries regarding the microstructure of the neocortex. Eccles defines the fundamental neural units of the neural cortex as dendrons, and determines that each of the 40 million dendrons is linked with a mental unit, which he calls a psychon, where a psychon represents a unitary conscious experience.
Eccles agrees in principle with the neo-Darwinian theory that evolution is driven by random genetic mutations followed by the weeding out of unfavorable variations by natural selection, but he also argues that “there is a Divine Providence operating over and above the materialist happenings of biological evolution.” He maintains that the mental (or psychon) world, came into existence with the development of the complex neocortex of the mammalian brain, and that the natural selection evolution of the neocortex enabled the increased complexity of sensory inputs to be integrated, offering survival advantages to the mammal.
Eccles’ theory claims that quantum physics enters the brain dynamics in connection with exocytosis, which is the release of the contents of a “vesicle” – filled with neurotransmitter- from a nerve terminal into a synaptic cleft. The close causal connection between the activation of a dendron and the activation of an electromagnetic field in the general area of the dendron presents some similarities to the electromagnetic field in the brain theory as described by Pockett and others (Pockett, 2000). Exocytosis is generated by an action potential pulse that starts an influx of calcium ions through ion channels into a nerve terminal. These calcium ions migrate from the ion-channel exits to sites that are near the vesicles, where they trigger the release of the contents of the vesicle (neurotransmitter substance) into the synaptic cleft (the place where a neuron feeds into another). The diameter of the ion channel is very small, less than a nanometer, and according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, this creates a correspondingly large uncertainty in the direction of the motion of the ion. The large Heisenberg uncertainty in the locations of the triggering calcium ions, determine that the classical uncertainties will carry over to similar quantum uncertainties, and the two possibilities: ‘exocytosis’ or ‘no-exocytosis’ will both be present in the quantum state. It is often suggested that in connection to the quantum operation of the brain, the ‘environment’ will be affected differently by interactions with the brain states in which an exocytosis has or has not occurred, and that this difference will destroy, almost immediately, all interference effects between the macroscopically distinct states.
Eccles and Beck have not been the only scientists that have proposed to explain consciousness with a basis on quantum physics. In recent years, several researchers have developed variations of consciousness theories based on quantum concepts such as the collapse of the quantum wave, non-locality and quantum entanglement. One of the latest hypotesis is the one developed by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose which propose an explanation based on the quantum coherence in the microtubules of the neurons.
The Hypotesis of Quantum Coherence in the Microtubules
Understanding that the universe is described by two sets of laws, Newton’s Classical Physics at the macroscopic level, and Quantum Mechanics at very small scales, Stuart Hameroff proposes that “The boundary between the quantum world and the everyday world-quantum state reduction, or the so-called collapse of the wave function-is a big question in physics and seems to have something to do with consciousness” (Blackmore, 2006). Hameroff explains that our perceived reality, or the everyday classical world, precipitates from microscopic components, conscious moment by conscious moment, and in our minds, we experience superpositions of multiple possible choices or perceptions that reduce or collapse one particular choice or perception, about 40 times per second. Penrose proposes that our minds perform activities that are non-computable, and non-algorithmic, totally different from the activities performed by classical computers, and he explains that “the only source in the universe for this non-computable influence is the particular type of collapse of the wave function due to quantum gravity at the fundamental Planck scale” (Penrose, 1989).
The complete model developed by Hameroff and Penrose defines quantum computation in the microtubules inside neurons reaching the threshold for collapse 40 times every second, coinciding with the 40HZ oscillation in the brain known as “gamma”. The outcome of each reduction is a process of quantum superposition, quantum computation, following Schrodinger’s equation. When the collapse occurs, ther is another influence, described by Penrose as the non-computable influence that is due to the fine grain in space-time geometry. Both the deterministic quantum computation and the non-computable influence actions make us experience what is known as “free-will” (Blackmore, 2006).
The Impact of the Quantum Physics Paradigm on Material Realism
Currently the world of science appears to be accepting more and more the paradigm determined by Quantum Physics. It has taken more than one century for the Quantum theories to be developed, and for their mystery to be gradually accepted by scientists.
Quantum theories discard the main assumptions held by the Material Realism view of the Universe, as follows:
Strong Objectivity – According to materialists, there is an objective material world, one that is independent of us. Quantum physics determines that the observer chooses the aspect, wave or particle, that a given object is going to reveal on a specific situation. The observer collapses the quantum wave packet into a localized particle.
Causal Determinism – The materialistic world defines that the world is fundamentally deterministic, all that is required is to know the forces acting on an object and its initial conditions to explain the behavior of the object, but the quantum uncertainty principle indicates that we can never determine both an object’s velocity and position simultaneously with absolute accuracy. The behavior of quantum objects is probabilistic, and does not allow for a strict cause-effect relationship among objects.
Locality – Locality indicates that all interactions between material objects are mediated via local signals, and objects exist independently and separate from each other. Quantum physics defines that waves spread over vast distances and then collapse instantly when a measurement is taken, therefore the influence of this measurement is not traveling locally.
Materialism and Epiphenomenalism – The materialist view indicates that subjective mental phenomena is just epiphenomena of matter, being reduced to material brain processes. The behavior of quantum processes require consciousness, with its ability to choose.
In summary, one of the main current paradigms of science, Quantum Physics, contradicts the assumptions of material realism. As an alternative to the materialist view, Amit Goswami proposes what he calls “Monistic Idealism”, in which consciousness takes a fundamental position in the world of mental phenomena and the world of matter. Monistic Idealism is an unitary philosophy, in which all subdivisions, such as the immanent and the transcendent, are within consciousness, making consciousness the ultimate reality (Goswami, 1993).
The Philosophy of Monistic Idealism
Goswami’s proposal assumes that the only view of the brain-mind that is complete and consistent is one in which the brain-mind is an interactive system with both classical and quantum components. Such hypotesis can explain cause-effect relations, as well as free-will, the consciousness of experiences and self-identity, and the solution also reveals creativity as a fundamental ingredient of human experience. The brain accommodates consciousness because it has a quantum system sharing the job with a classical system. The classical system is similar to a computer that runs programs that follow the laws of classical physics, and that can be simulated in algorithmic form, while the quantum system runs on programs that are non-algorithmic when they work about the discontinuity of the collapse of the wave function. The quantum system is regenerative and takes care of the new items (quantum objects remain new forever) while the classical system manages the memories, makes records and creates a sense of continuity (Goswami, 1993). This hypothesis allows for the mental archetypes proposed by Jung to fit as conglomerates of universal quanta – these archetypes being of a universal character, independently of race, history, culture or geographical origin. The hypothesis of monistic idealism differs from Eccles’ liaison brain dualistic theory mainly because in monistic idealism the quantum computer is not a localized part of the brain, and because the consciousness connection, as proposed by Eccles, does not violate the conservation of energy.
Conclusion
In this writing we have reviewed some of the main theories of consciousness proposed from the traditional scientific point of view, mainly from the neurosciences, as well as some proposals that are considered more radical in the scientific community. The neurosciences have performed disciplined scientific studies that have allowed to understand the functions of the brain in basic sensory activities, mainly with vision, as described in the work performed by Francis Crick and Christof Koch, followed by the proposal of Neural Darwinism by Gerald Edelman. However, the feeling of some scientists such as Koch is that the understanding of consciousness will be occurring one step at a time (probably through the neural correlates of consciousness concept), following the disciplined approach maintained to date, and that it will probably take one hundred more years to be able to enter into explanations of more complex brain functions other than sensory functions (Koch, 2005). However, some serious scientists, as it is the case with Nobel Prize winner Sir John Eccles, have proposed some more radical hypotesis that involve ideas that are not totally accepted by the current scientific paradigm but that appear promising in trying to explain consciousness away from a materialistic view. According to Thomas Kuhn, in the history of science, when a theory gives rise to seemingly insuperable problems it is often a sign that a “paradigm shift” is required (Barr, 2003). I believe that some of the insuperable problems so far in the attempt to explain consciousness from the scientific point of view include items such as free-will, feelings, sense of self, and creativity, which make humans so different from every other species in nature.
The hypotesis proposed by Goswami, of the brain being both a classical and a quantum computer I believe has the most merit at this time. I believe in the future years, the field of neurosciences and quantum physics will continue to find new knowledge that will allow this hypotesis to become stronger, particularly with the introduction of the Superstring theory and including the analysis of the brain activity during the different stages of sleeping, which could be explained by using quantum concepts.
The current knowledge of consciousness is ready for a paradigm shift, and I believe it will be through this combination of neuroscience and quantum physics that the new paradigm will be found.
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