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Consciousness: the radical plasticity thesis.

Axel Cleeremans1

  • 1Cognitive Science Research Unit, Université Libre de Bruxelles CP 191, 50 ave. F.-D. Roosevelt, Brussels, Belgium. axcleer@ulb.ac.be

Progress in Brain Research
|January 2, 2008
PubMed
Summary
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Conscious and unconscious cognition share learning mechanisms. Consciousness emerges through learning, impacting representation quality and enabling adaptive behavior, suggesting we learn to be conscious.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Philosophy of Mind

Background:

  • Conscious and unconscious cognition are often studied separately.
  • Existing frameworks may not fully account for the shared mechanisms underlying both states.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose a unified conceptual framework for conscious and unconscious cognition.
  • To explore the role of learning in the emergence and properties of consciousness.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis of cognitive mechanisms.
  • Integration of learning theory with representational systems.
  • Exploration of metarepresentation and graded properties of consciousness.

Main Results:

  • Conscious and unconscious cognition stem from the same learning mechanisms and representational systems.

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  • Consciousness is a graded phenomenon influenced by representation stability and strength, acquired through mandatory learning.
  • Consciousness involves a quality continuum and metarepresentations, facilitating flexible behavioral control.

    • Conclusions:

    • Consciousness primarily functions to enable flexible, adaptive control over behavior.
    • The "radical plasticity thesis" posits that consciousness itself is learned, emerging from systems that learn about their own internal representations.