Brain and conscious experience

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Evolutionary Psychology

Background:

• The prevailing view posits a unified neural network underlying human consciousness.
• This perspective suggests complex emergent properties arise with increased brain complexity.
• Understanding human consciousness is often approached by studying the entire brain's intricate network.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel, three-step framework for understanding human consciousness.
• To differentiate between a species' capacities and its awareness of those capacities.
• To challenge the notion of the brain as a general-purpose computing device.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis distinguishing species' capacities from subjective awareness.
• Examination of comparative neuroanatomy across species to illustrate capacity variation.
• Leveraging split-brain research findings on hemispheric specialization and the interpreter function.

Main Results:

• Conscious experience is defined as awareness of a species' specific capacities.
• The human brain is a collection of specialized circuits, not a unified general processor.
• Awareness levels correlate with the number and complexity of these specialized circuits.
• Split-brain research highlights hemispheric specialization and the left hemisphere's 'interpreter' role.

Conclusions:

• Human consciousness is an emergent property of numerous specialized neural circuits.
• Focusing on these discrete circuits offers a more tractable approach than analyzing the entire neural net.
• The left hemisphere's interpreter function plays a crucial role in constructing a coherent sense of self and experience.