Consciousness is a kind of private ‘inner world’ in which we experience our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. “But the term can have multiple meanings, which sometimes seem contradictory,” Jolien Francken explains. “A person is deemed conscious when they respond appropriately to outside stimuli. But also when that they are daydreaming and on the contrary not reacting. It is important to allow these different meanings to coexist in theories of consciousness.”
Why is consciousness such an interesting concept?
“It is a topic that very much speaks to the imagination. It is often assumed that consciousness is what enables our unique human capacities, such as reflecting on our behaviour or enjoying music. Besides, consciousness is what makes life worth living –without consciousness there is literally nothing much to it. At the same time, for many people, it is something that cannot ‘just’ be explained scientifically.”
How is it that we become aware of certain sounds, thoughts or sensations?
“You can interpret this question in two ways. One is: How is it at all possible that consciousness arises from complicated biochemical processes? That is the philosophical question. But the question could also be: How is it that we are aware of this one impression but not of others? You’d think these questions could be answered independently of one another, and that is how many scientists and philosophers see it. But in our book, we try to show that the answers to these two questions directly influence each other. We discovered that philosophy and neuroscience use two completely different approaches or methods to investigate consciousness. The neuroscience approach is not ‘neutral’, or ‘objective’, as many scientists think, but it is based on all sorts of philosophical assumptions.”
If philosophers and neuroscientists were to come up with a joint definition of consciousness, what would it roughly be?
“That definition would have to view awareness as a kind of cluster concept: a puzzle that requires several pieces to complete the picture. For example, one element has to do with how it feels to experience something, another with how we can act on information from different senses, and yet another with our continuous adaptation to the world around us. Neuroscientists and philosophers are working on the same puzzle, but they use pieces that sometimes don’t fit together. Although there is one important principle that the two fields must share in order to be able to work on the same puzzle at all: they both have to ask what consciousness does.”
Why would that help?
“It is the only way for researchers to try to map which processes in our brain are responsible for, say, bringing together information from different senses. Surely this is the Holy Grail that most philosophers and neuroscientists are looking for, yet we argue that we cannot actually expect real progress until we stop talking about consciousness.”
What new insights can the book bring?
“We’ve listed the latest insights from both philosophy and neuroscience on consciousness, and linked them to one another. I know of no other book that really integrates the insights from the two disciplines. We’re not trying to convince our readers of any particular position or view on consciousness; they can form their own informed opinion after reading our book.”
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