Three Basic Assumptions About
Consciousness
BRUNO FORTI1*
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Department of Mental Health, AZIENDA ULSS 1 DOLOMITI, Italy
Submitted to Journal:
Frontiers in Psychology
Specialty Section:
Consciousness Research
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Article type:
Conceptual Analysis Article
Manuscript ID:
813918
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Received on:
12 Nov 2021
Journal website link:
www.frontiersin.org
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial
relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest
Author contribution statement
The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.
Keywords
consciousness research, Phenomenal consciousness, Physical substrate, function, qualia, early visual perception
Abstract
Word count:
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In this paper I jointly analyse the implications for a theory of consciousness of three basic assumptions, with which most authors
seem to agree. These are the assumptions that consciousness exists, is physical and has a function. The material existence of
consciousness implies the need to have a structure. For research purposes it is useful to identify the simplest forms of
consciousness in terms of existence, structure and function respectively. It is also necessary to consider the existence of
consciousness in a specific form, in order to avoid formulating theories which refer to states which are not conscious, even if they
have some characteristics of consciousness – as is the case in many theories of consciousness. At the same time, consciousness must
have a structure and a function as such, in the sense that structure and function must not belong, at least in an exclusive way, to a
neural correlate of consciousness, to a physical substrate or to anything else that does not entirely correspond to consciousness in
its specific existence. The specificity of conscious existence leads us to set aside states that coincide with consciousness in the
broad sense of access or with properties such as unity, integration, intentionality, and changeability, and to prioritize the
different forms of phenomenal consciousness. Assuming that consciousness has a structure as such implies the need to search for a
third-person phenomenal structure. This leads to identifying the simplest structural aspects of consciousness not in qualitative
sensations, but in the phenomenal aspects of the perception of “a figure on a background”. Assuming a functional role for
consciousness as such leads us to identifying a function which, although related to information processing, cannot be caused by a
Neurocomputational brain and consequently cannot be computational in nature. The joint constraints of the three assumptions
significantly restrict the field in which to identify the most suitable forms of consciousness to be investigated first. A possible
research field to start from is the one of the simplest and earliest forms of visual perception.
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Contribution to the field
Consciousness is so hard to explain that it is still under discussion whether to assign to it three typical attributes of every
biological phenomenon, namely existence, physical nature and function. What are the implications for a theory of consciousness if
we assume that consciousness exists in a specific form, is material as such and has a function as such? If we refer to non-specific
forms of consciousness, e.g., access consciousness or integration, we risk formulating theories that describe non-conscious states
or processes. If we do not refer to consciousness as such, we are likely to attribute the structure that characterizes every
physical phenomenon to the physical substrate and not to the experience itself. If we do not identify a function of consciousness as
such, we risk attributing it entirely to the computational processes of the brain. This would result in the impossibility of assigning
a function to consciousness. On the other hand, only phenomenal consciousness can fulfill these three requirements. In this context,
the simplest structural and functional aspects of consciousness should be identified not in qualia, i.e., the qualitative aspects of the
subjective sensations that characterize experience, but in the basic phenomenal aspects of visual perception.
Ethics statements
Studies involving animal subjects
Generated Statement: No animal studies are presented in this manuscript.
Studies involving human subjects
Generated Statement: No human studies are presented in this manuscript.
Inclusion of identifiable human data
Generated Statement: No potentially identifiable human images or data is presented in this study.
Three Basic Assumptions About Consciousness
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Bruno Forti1*
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* Correspondence:
Bruno Forti
brunoforti4@gmail.com
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Keywords: consciousness research, phenomenal consciousness, physical substrate, function,
qualia, early visual perception.
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Abstract
Department of Mental Health, Azienda ULSS 1 Dolomiti, Belluno, Italia
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In this paper I jointly analyse the implications for a theory of consciousness of three basic
assumptions, with which most authors seem to agree. These are the assumptions that consciousness
exists, is physical and has a function. The material existence of consciousness implies the need to
have a structure. For research purposes it is useful to identify the simplest forms of consciousness in
terms of existence, structure and function respectively. It is also necessary to consider the existence
of consciousness in a specific form, in order to avoid formulating theories which refer to states which
are not conscious, even if they have some characteristics of consciousness – as is the case in many
theories of consciousness. At the same time, consciousness must have a structure and a function as
such, in the sense that structure and function must not belong, at least in an exclusive way, to a neural
correlate of consciousness, to a physical substrate or to anything else that does not entirely
correspond to consciousness in its specific existence. The specificity of conscious existence leads us
to set aside states that coincide with consciousness in the broad sense of access or with properties
such as unity, integration, intentionality, and changeability, and to prioritize the different forms of
phenomenal consciousness. Assuming that consciousness has a structure as such implies the need to
search for a third-person phenomenal structure. Qualia and qualitative feel seem to be suitable for
highlighting the simpler aspects of experience, even if the concept of qualia is scarcely compatible
with the concept of structure, and even if sensations can only be experienced as belonging to some
object. This leads to identifying the simplest structural aspects of consciousness not in qualitative
sensations, but in the phenomenal aspects of the perception of “a figure on a background”. Assuming
a functional role for consciousness as such leads us to the paradox of identifying a function which,
although related to information processing, cannot be caused by a Neurocomputational brain and
consequently cannot be computational in nature. The joint constraints of the three assumptions
significantly restrict the field in which to identify the most suitable forms of consciousness to be
investigated first. A possible research field to start from is the one of the simplest and earliest forms
of visual perception.
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Introduction
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Different conceptual frameworks aimed at characterizing consciousness take sometimes radically
different assumptions as their starting point. A possible method to formulate a theory of
consciousness is to examine three basic assumptions:
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- consciousness exists;
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- consciousness is material;
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- consciousness has a function.
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These assumptions are fundamental to any hypothesis that can be formulated about consciousness.
They are apparently quite intuitive, and most authors agree with them (James, 1904; Searle, 1997,
2004; Earl, 2014; Kendler, 2005; Tononi and Koch, 2015; Jylkkä and Railo, 2019). However, in this
paper I will try to argue that accepting these three basic assumptions about consciousness, especially
when taken together, has implications that are not insignificant. They place considerable constraints
on any possible theory of consciousness. At the same time, they can open up new lines of research.
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Article type
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Conceptual Analysis
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Consciousness exists
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A number of thinkers denied the existence of something we know with certainty to exist. They
denied the existence of consciousness, conscious experience, the subjective qualitative character of
experience, the ‘phenomenal’ what-it-is-like of experience (Strawson, 2018). Paul and Patricia
Churchland (Churchland, 1989, 1995; Churchland and Sejnowski, 1992) argued that concepts
relating to the mind belong to the ‘folk psychology’ of common sense and, like the concepts of
phlogiston and vital spirit, they will no longer make sense when more effective explanations
emerge. The mechanisms we call conscious can be explained in the context of a mind model
inspired by connectionism and neural networks. Qualitative states can thus be identified with
neural activity vectors within special neural network structures.
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According to Dennett, there seems to be such a thing as qualia, but it is an error of assessment that
we make about what is actually happening. According to the Multiple Draft Model (Dennett, 1991),
subjectivity is an illusory construction, a virtual entity implemented by a brain acting in a distributed
and parallel way through a multiple set of cognitive activities. None of these cognitive agencies
coincides with the self, which is merely an imaginary point, a sort of narrative centre of gravity. The
information that reaches the nervous system is subject to a continuous “editorial revision”. Only the
end product of these various interpretative processes becomes part of our experience, but these
processes are not assessed by a chief reviewer. A content becomes conscious if and when it becomes
part of a temporarily dominant activity in the cerebral cortex, the so-called ‘dominant focus’ (Dennet
& Kinsbourne, 1992).
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In later work Dennett replaced the metaphor of multiple drafts with the metaphor of fame in the
brain. Consciousness is like fame; it is not a special ‘medium of representation’ in the brain into
which content-bearing events must be ‘transduced’ in order to become conscious. Content-bearing
events in the brain achieve something a bit like fame in competition with other fame-seeking
events. What a theory of consciousness needs to explain is how some relatively few contents become
elevated to this power, while most others evaporate into oblivion after doing their modest deeds in
the ongoing projects of the brain (Dennet, 2001, 2005).
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However, “experience is the most central and manifest aspect of our mental lives, and indeed is
perhaps the key explanandum in the science of mind. Because of this status as an explanandum,
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experience cannot be discharged like the vital spirit when a new theory comes along. Rather, it is the
central fact that any theory of consciousness must explain. A theory that denies the phenomenon
‘solves’ the problem by ducking the question” (Chalmers, 1995). According to Searle (1997), you
cannot disprove the existence of conscious experiences by proving that they are only an appearance
disguising the underlying reality, because where consciousness is concerned the existence of the
appearance is the reality. If it seems to me exactly as if I am having conscious experiences, then I am
having conscious experiences. Tononi and Koch (2015) state that “consciousness exists: my
experience just is. Indeed, that my experience here and now exists – it is real or actual – is the only
fact I am immediately and absolutely sure of, as Descartes realized four centuries ago.”
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However, to formulate a theory of consciousness it is not sufficient to assume that consciousness
exists. What forms of consciousness that we recognize as such do we need to explain? What is the
explanandum? One way of asking this question is to ask whether consciousness exists in a specific
form, in order to avoid referring to “false positives”, i.e., states that are not conscious even though
they exhibit some features typical of consciousness. Which aspects of consciousness are specific?
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The properties most often associated with consciousness (James, 1890; Tononi and Edelman, 1998;
Zeman, 2001; Edelman, 2003; Searle, 2004; Tyler, 2020) are the following:
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- Qualitative character;
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- Personal; subjective; in first person;
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- Unitary: its contents are unified at any one time;
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- Intentional;
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- Selective, with a foreground and background;
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- Changeable: consciousness states are always changing.
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A fundamental distinction is the one between ‘Phenomenal’ Consciousness and ‘Access’
Consciousness (Block, 1995, 2005). As proposed by Block in his seminal 1995 article, phenomenal
consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in
that state. The mark of access consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning,
reporting and enabling rational control of action (Naccache, 2018). Some theories of consciousness
claim to be about the phenomenal aspect and thus carry a distinct explanatory pretence (Signorelli, et
al. 2021). It is worth noting that many conceptions of consciousness do not address this fundamental
aspect.
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Access consciousness can be considered a non-specific form of consciousness, as it can belong to
consciousness, but also to many other non-conscious states. In this sense, access consciousness
would constitute a form of unconscious information processing that is not distinguishable from what
could occur in a (biological or computational) neural network (Tyler, 2020). Several conceptions of
consciousness have these characteristics and many of them fall broadly within the notion of access
consciousness.
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Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness – to be conscious it is only
necessary to be aware of the external world (Sutherland, 1989). For centuries, consciousness
coincided with our spiritual and immortal soul, so we tend to identify it with something exclusively
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human, like verbal reasoning and self-awareness in its highest forms. Aristotle distinguished between
the vegetative, sensitive and intellectual soul. For a long time, only the latter was investigated by
philosophers and scientists. However, scholars gradually realized that our conception of
consciousness cannot ignore much simpler experiences, such as our feelings of red or pain. At the
same time, the subjective nature of consciousness has become increasingly evident, so much so that
Searle (2004), in order to distinguish what is conscious from what is not, used the dichotomy
between subjective, or first-person, ontology and objective, or third-person, ontology. The questions
relating to these aspects of consciousness have turned out to be so challenging as to deserve the
definition of hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995).
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Many theories of consciousness, as was historically the case with binding (Feldman, 2013), fail from
square one precisely because they refer to something that is not specific to consciousness. Binding is
the process whereby separately represented pieces of information about a single entity are brought
together to be used by later processing. Clearly, a theory might explain the binding of information
contents, and perhaps it might yield a more general account of the integration of information in the
brain. Such a theory would be valuable, but it would tell us nothing about why the relevant contents
are experienced (Chalmers, 1995). Specificity is not fulfilled in the case of the unity of consciousness
either, even though this is a characteristic that almost all authors attribute to consciousness. Although
there are in fact a variety of ways in which experiences can be unified (Bayne, 2009), the unity of
consciousness at a single time is related to the ability to integrate information from all senses into one
coherent whole. In this sense, unity can apply to different non-conscious systems.
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The Higher Order Theory (HOT) of consciousness claims that a mere first-order representation is not
sufficient for conscious experiences to arise (Brown et al., 2019). However, also a first-order state
being in some ways monitored or meta-represented by a relevant higher-order representation is in no
way sufficient for a state of consciousness to occur. The Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) model
(Dehaene et al., 1998) is a part of Bernard Baars’s Global Workspace model (Baars, 1997). It is a
model according to which conscious access occurs when incoming information is made globally
available to multiple brain systems through a network of neurons with long-range axons densely
distributed in prefrontal, parieto-temporal, and cingulate cortices. The best the theory can do is to say
that the information is experienced because it is globally accessible. But why should global
accessibility give rise to conscious experience? The changeability of conscious experience is
attributed by many authors both to the high variability of environmental stimulation and to the
dynamic and complex nature of the brain processes involved in it (Edelman, 2003). Intentionality, as
a quality of being directed toward an object, has often been associated with consciousness. But even
a non-conscious system like an automaton can relate to something external to it.
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Therefore, there are aspects that do belong to consciousness, but not in a specific way. If we exclude
those that refer to the highest forms of consciousness, many of these non-specific conceptions can be
considered necessary but not sufficient for some form of experience to exist. In the absence of
specific features of consciousness, there is a risk of formulating a theory that refers to something that
is compatible with the absence of consciousness. The problem becomes even more complicated when
we consider that some of the non-specific aspects of consciousness are precisely the ones that
eliminative materialism or consciousness denial attribute to consciousness. Dehaene (2014) equates
the global availability of information which characterizes the global neural workspace hypothesis
with Dennet's fame in the brain. This raises the question of how many of the existing theories are
actually theories of consciousness.
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Phenomenal consciousness exist in a specific form
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Conversely, the specific characteristics of consciousness can be attributed to its phenomenal aspect.
Phenomenal consciousness seems to represent what is unique to consciousness, which exists
exclusively in the presence of consciousness and not in other situations. Consequently, if a property
such as unity undoubtedly applies to consciousness, then we should understand how the unity that
manifests itself on the phenomenal level differs from other forms of unity (Wiese, 2017).
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How can we characterize phenomenal consciousness? Specificity can be expressed through Nagel's
formula: “an organism has conscious mental states if and only if ...”. Specificity is certainly fulfilled
if one experiences something in being an organism. Thomas Nagel’s “what it is like” criterion aims
to capture the subjective notion of being a conscious organism (Nagel, 1974). According to Nagel, a
being is conscious just if there is “something that it is like” to be that creature, i.e., some subjective
way the world seems or appears from the creature’s mental or experiential point of view.
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A similar way of characterizing phenomenal consciousness is the notion of qualia. The qualitative
aspect of the subjective sensations that characterize experience is often associated with so-called
qualia. Philosophers use the term qualia to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects
of our mental lives (Tye, 2021). The qualia of our experiences are what give each of them its
characteristic “feel” and also what distinguish them from one another (Kind, 2008).
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Qualia seem to fully meet the specificity criterion. The sheer qualitative feel of pain is a very
different feature of the brain from the pattern of neuron firing that cause the pain (Searle, 1997).
Certain theories can explain the problem of control, connection, integration, but not what it is like to
see something as red, square, or moving from left to right (Block, 1995). One thing is to provide
neurological distinctions between qualia – to say that one group of neurons is activated by blue,
another by salt, another by pain – but quite another to explain how blueness as you or I experience it
comes out of what our brains are doing (Jackendoff, 1990).
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In what-it-is-likeness and in qualia the subjective aspect is fundamental. Of course, the subject is not
an entity in itself, but something that acquires meaning in relation to what it experiences, to the
perceived object. This also applies to qualia, which are only such if they can be experienced by a
subject. The feelings of pain, pleasure, heat, sweetness are inevitably subjective. It is as if
consciousness implies an inseparable link between the subject and the content of the experience. In
this respect, subjectivity as a link between these two poles appears to be a fundamental aspect of
consciousness.
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However, subjectivity can also be objectified to some extent. If we break it down into its constituent
elements, we can identify, for instance, knowing aspects of the self, being an agent, representing the
world from a point of view, acting as a bearer of interests and values. But a camera can have a point
of view. A computer that processes information is an agent, as is an automaton that performs certain
behaviors in response to environmental or internal stimuli. The automaton can have values if we
include goals, objectives or priorities when we program it. Self-driving cars have something
comparable to values, to the extent that they can generate conflicts between different priorities. From
a phenomenal perspective, the fact remains that the subject appears to be closely associated with
sensations and qualia, whether simple or complex.
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This is how Chalmers (1995) summarizes the issue of the definition of consciousness: “the really
hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience …. If any problem qualifies as the
problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of ‘consciousness’, an organism is
conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is
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something it is like to be in that state. Sometimes terms such as ‘phenomenal consciousness’ and
‘qualia’ are also used here, but I find it more natural to speak of ‘conscious experience’ or simply
‘experience’.”
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In addition to identifying the aspects of consciousness that exist in a specific sense, in order to
formulate a theory of consciousness it is necessary to address the simplest possible forms of
consciousness. A theory of consciousness should identify the simplest forms of phenomenal
consciousness. There are several reasons for this. First of all, in any theory it is important to identify
the fundamental and basic aspects of the phenomenon under study. The identification of elementary
units has been a key in many fields of science and could also be a key in the field of consciousness
research (Kanai and Tsuchiya, 2012). Secondly, it is necessary to identify the simplest level at which
consciousness manifests itself. Edelman (2003) distinguishes between primary consciousness, which
concerns sensations, images and perceptual experiences in general, and higher-order consciousness,
which includes self-consciousness and language. However, the main problem is the description of
primary consciousness, because higher-order consciousness emerges from processes that are already
conscious. Finally, the most difficult aspects to explain seem to be the apparently less complex ones.
Simple aspects such as raw sensations seem to help identify the problem of consciousness very
effectively.
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In this sense, the mystery of consciousness seems to boil down to the impossibility of explaining the
fact that we experience sensations. The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining
how and why it is that some internal states are felt states, such as heat or pain, rather than unfelt
states, as in a thermostat or a toaster (Chalmers, 1995). Perhaps the most difficult biological question
of all might be how and why electrochemical neuronal activity in the brain generates subjective
conscious experience such as the redness of red or the painfulness of pain (Kanai and Tsuchiya,
2012).
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However, it is doubtful whether qualia and sensations can be regarded as the simplest phenomenal
experiences. Qualia, introduced in the philosophical field, seem to be more of a conceptual
abstraction than an actual phenomenal reality, especially when it is assumed that “the entire
phenomenal experience at a given point in time is considered as one quale” (Kanai and Tsuchiya,
2012). As an elementary form of phenomenal consciousness, the quale is inadequate, because a
certain sensation is never perceived as something that coincides with conscious experience in its
entirety or that can be separated from the experience to which it belongs. Searle equates qualia with
the qualitative aspect (Searle, 2004). “Conscious experiences have a qualitative aspect. There is a
qualitative feel to drinking beer, which is quite different from the qualitative feel of listening to
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Several philosophers have found it useful to introduce a technical
term to describe this qualitative aspect of consciousness. Each conscious state is a quale, because
there is a certain qualitative feel to each state.” In my opinion, they are different things. The notion of
qualia is coextensive with the notion of consciousness (Searle, 2004) and, in this sense, it is a
conceptual artifice. In contrast, the qualitative feel can best be defined as something that
characterizes a conscious experience but is not identified with it, whether we refer to simple
qualitative feels or more complex ones.
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If we use the notion of qualitative feel because it better corresponds to phenomenal reality, then it
becomes clear that none of us has the experience of the quale of green, of sweetness, of pain. We
perceive something green, something sweet; we perceive pain in a part of the body, and therefore in
relation to it. We cannot help but perceive these sensations in relation to something. There is no
evidence that by eliminating what green belongs to, it would retain those phenomenal properties or
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that it would retain phenomenal properties in general. So, is that something, i.e., the object, the
simplest phenomenal experience?
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Consciousness is physical
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Consciousness is physical, it is material. This is apparently another assumption which we can agree
with, and which should not be too problematic for those who address the problem of consciousness
from a scientific point of view.
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A not insignificant part of the scientific evidence on consciousness is based on the study of Neural
Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) (Koch, 2004). Tracking the correlations between brain processes
and states of phenomenal consciousness, such as feelings of pain, seeings of blue, hearings of
trumpet sounds, is the basic method of scientific consciousness research (Polák and Marvan, 2018).
This is a very promising approach which, at the very least, allows us to delimit the field of research.
For example, it has enabled us to identify the cortex as the preferable field of research and to observe
that the cerebellum, despite the complexity of its structure and the very large number of neurons it
houses, is hardly involved in the occurrence of a subjective experience (Koch et al., 2016).
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However, since consciousness is such a difficult issue, the nature of the relationships between neural
structures and conscious experiences raises many questions. Chalmers (2000) has provided the most
informative and influential definition of NCC (Owen and Guta, 2019). The Neural Correlates of
Consciousness (NCC) can be defined as the minimal set of neural events jointly sufficient for a
specific conscious experience – given the appropriate enabling conditions (Koch, 2004). However,
when correlations are found between neural events and conscious experiences, we must consider all
the following possibilities (Blackmore, 2003):
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- neural events cause conscious experiences;
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- conscious experiences cause neural events;
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- something else causes both of them;
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- neural events are conscious experiences;
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- we have so misconstrued one or the other that none of these is true.
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With respect to these possibilities, positions may differ (Crick and Koch, 1990; Gallotto et al., 2017);
Polák and Marvan, 2018). The notion of NCC is in itself acceptable, because from a theoretical point
of view it is neutral. Problems arise when the notion of correlate is associated with the notion of
physical or material substrate of consciousness. What does physical substrate mean? Usually, in
nature we do not seek something in the form of a substrate to justify the physical ontology of
something else. None of us would wonder about the substrate of the solar system, a tectonic plate or a
cell – something that exists alongside these entities and justifies their existence. I am of course
referring to a “macro” level of the substrate. The fact remains that consciousness – like everything
else – can be reduced to its “micro” components. We can search for the “micro” components of
consciousness and expect them to provide elements of explanation for what we know at the “macro”
level, but not to explain a “macro” level that coexists with consciousness and justifies its existence.
The supposed substrate of consciousness, as it is currently conceived, does not concern solely a level
below the observable one. It is such at both the “micro” and “macro” levels and may be to some
extent independent of consciousness itself.
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So why do we speak of a material substrate? Because consciousness is an immaterial entity? Because
it is an abstract entity, like information? No, if consciousness is an entity we have assumed to exist
materially. If consciousness performs a function related to information, it is not an abstract function,
but a particular way of performing it. Life is a way of ensuring the reproduction of an organism. In
this sense, there may be other “material substrates” that allow this to happen. But life as we know it
is a particular way of achieving this purpose. Therefore, we are not going to seek the material
substrate of life, which biological phenomena as we know them have in themselves, in other entities
than the phenomenon itself.
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The neural substrate of behavior (Robie et al., 2017) is a different thing. It can be located in the brain
unit that coordinates the individual actions underlying a behavior, and it can coincide with the
activation of a program implemented in the neuronal network. In this case, there is a correspondence
between the activated neuronal sequence and the observable behavior that has a functional role. In
the case of consciousness, there could be a correspondence only if the latter is a sort of side effect of
the neuronal activity, as we shall see later. Apart from the feedback it can generate, behavior has a
function as output, but consciousness cannot have such a function. It would only have such a function
if we accepted the idea of naive psychology that a sensory experience serves the perceiver. As Russel
(1912) says, “in the presence of my table I am acquainted with the sense-data that make up the
appearance of my table – its colour, shape, hardness, smoothness, etc.; all these are things of which I
am immediately conscious when I am seeing and touching my table.”
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Consciousness has a structure as such
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How should we approach consciousness? The concept of structure can be helpful in this. If
consciousness is a material entity, it must have a structure. To assume that consciousness is material
is to assume that it has a structure. What is not usually taken into account is that it should have a
structure as such. Many authors wonder about the structure and organization of the brain areas
involved in phenomenal experience, i.e., the physical substrate. However, experience, being material,
must have a structure as such. Before wondering about the structure of the brain areas involved in
phenomenal experience, one should first look for the materiality of consciousness in the experience
itself, i.e., what we might call the phenomenal structure.
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What is the problem with attributing a physical structure to consciousness as such? The problem may
be due to the fact that consciousness has a first-person ontology (Searle, 2004). The description of its
structure should be in the third person and refer to something that leads to a first-person experience,
whereas our knowledge about consciousness is exclusively first-person. Supposing we know some
aspects of the phenomenal structure, we know them from a first-person perspective. Therefore, it is
first necessary to adopt a third-person perspective.
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Nagel argued that the purely objective study of an entity, such as the one science provides, does not
allow any inference about the subjective character of being such an entity (Van Gulick, 2018).
However, an objective approach may not be impossible if the third-person phenomenal structure is
modelled precisely around the features of subjective experience, starting with the simplest ones. We
do not expect the third-person phenomenal structure to be identical to the one we know first-person.
Moreover, although consciousness is appearance, its third-person structure is not necessarily obvious
and self-evident. Its nature may be counterintuitive. However, it must not only be compatible with
experience, but also adhere to it in all its aspects.
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At a later stage we could ask ourselves how such a structure can be physically realized. We could
even call the way in which this structure is physically realized a substrate. In any case, this physical
realization can only be related to a phenomenal structure. The structure cannot exist in the physical
substrate alone. A substrate construed in this way makes possible the third-person structure that
produces the first-person phenomenal experience. This means that one step – the third-person
phenomenal structure – would be missing in the perspectives usually adopted between phenomenal
reality and the physical substrate. In a different sense from the one proposed here, the idea of a
substrate of consciousness entails the risk of having to postulate a theory of the “double ontology” of
consciousness, whereby consciousness would have a double existence: in the form we all know,
devoid of structure and function – hence presumably immaterial – and in its substrate, with a
structure and a function.
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The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is a model in which the physical substrate can be regarded
as the way in which a phenomenal structure is realized (Tononi, 2004). IIT starts from the essential
phenomenal properties of experience, or axioms, and infers postulates about the characteristics that
are required of its physical substrate. The theory then identifies five essential properties, namely
intrinsicality, composition, information, integration, and exclusion (Tononi and Koch, 2015). The
physical substrate is intended as a system of connected units in a state, such as a set of active and
inactive neurons in our brain. If every experience has the essential properties of being intrinsic,
structured, specific, unified, and definite, its physical substrate must satisfy these properties in terms
of cause-effect power. On this basis, the integrated information theory proposes an identity between a
particular experience and the particular cause-effect structure specified by a physical substrate in its
current state. The goal is to account in physical terms for experience as such – the causal distinctions
and relations that compose it – rather than merely for how the brain represents and performs
functions (Tononi et al., 2016).
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The question for IIT is whether the properties listed by Tononi et al. (2016) are actually specific to
consciousness, whether they describe its phenomenal structure. Can we say that intrinsicality,
composition, information, integration, and exclusion provide a comprehensive description of
phenomenal experience as an explanandum? Axioms should be essential, complete, consistent and
independent (Tononi and Koch, 2015). Although Haun and Tononi (2019) state that these five
essential properties are immediate, indubitable, and true of every conceivable experience, whether the
current set of five axioms are truly valid, complete and independent remains open (Tononi and Koch,
2015). These properties do not seem to concern the phenomenal aspect of consciousness and
therefore do not satisfy the specificity criterion (Tyler, 2020). Intrinsicality does not imply
subjectivity in the phenomenal sense of the term. The identity between the phenomenal quality and
the form of the cause-effect structure is not very different from the identity between the qualitative
states and the vectors of neural activity proposed by Paul Churchland (1989, 1995).
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The phenomenal structure of consciousness
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What is the phenomenal structure of consciousness? Since it is useful to address the simplest forms
of consciousness in order to formulate a theory of consciousness, we have to ask ourselves what its
basic structure is, and what the simplest aspects of its phenomenal structure are.
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Usually, the idea of quale is scarcely compatible with the idea of structure (Loorits, 2014). To
identify consciousness with qualia is to think that conscious structure is elsewhere. When we speak
of qualia, we make no distinction between the quale of red, a feeling of pain, the perceptual
experience of a vintage wine, listening to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and the awareness of one's
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own human condition. Perhaps because, influenced by its supposed immateriality, we do not think
that consciousness can have a structure and that this structure can be more or less complex. This
position is untenable if we assume that consciousness is material, and therefore has structure as such,
and if we consider the different level of complexity of conscious experiences. With regard to the
problem of NCC, Koch attempts to find the sufficient conditions for consciousness to exist by
making reference to the quale of red as a very simple conscious experience (Koch, 2004). Of course,
the experience of red is very different from the one of a sunset view experienced in a certain
emotional situation, or from many other common experiences in our everyday life, which are equally
complex. However, we cannot justify the different complexity of these conscious experiences only on
the basis of the different complexity of their neural correlates.
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Thinking about the structure of consciousness means thinking about it in terms of the relations
between its components. One reason why qualia are considered irreducible is their supposed intrinsic
nature (Dennett, 1988; de Leon, 2001; Siddharth and Menon, 2017). But this misunderstanding
stems from a phenomenal simplicity of the perception of a color which, in fact, is not so simple. Let
us try to replace red with black in a black-and-white world, made up of black, white and a broader or
narrower range of grays. It is a simpler world, but it is to all intents and purposes a phenomenal
world. In a black and white world, it becomes much more difficult to speak of the blackness of black
as an intrinsic element. Black or gray is black or gray in the context of its relation to the white
background, from which it differs. Dark gray is dark gray because it differs from the white
background more than light gray and less than black. Black is black because it differs from white
more than any shade of gray. In this sense, a certain shade is in relation both to something that is
present in the field of the stimulus and to something that is outside it.
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Another relationship is the one with the object. As we have seen above, none of us perceives the
quale of green, of sweetness, of pain. We perceive something green, something sweet, we perceive
pain in a part of the body and therefore in relation to it. Moreover, if the quality is inevitably the
quality of something, this something is in turn always in relation to a background. In other words, a
phenomenal quality cannot but belong to something, and this something cannot but belong to a
background. Green belongs to the leaf, pain to the knee. In turn, the green leaf is on the tree or
against the background of the sky, the painful knee is in the leg. As Merleau-Ponty (1945) points out,
“at the outset of the study of perception, we find in language the notion of sensation, which seems
immediate and obvious: I have a sensation of redness, of blueness, of hot or cold. It will, however, be
seen that nothing could in fact be more confused, and that because they accepted it readily, traditional
analyses missed the phenomenon of perception … When Gestalt theory informs us that a figure on a
background is the simplest sense-given available to us, we reply that this is not a contingent
characteristic of factual perception, which leaves us free, in an ideal analysis, to bring in the notion of
impressions. It is the very definition of the phenomenon of perception, that without which a
phenomenon cannot be said to be perception at all. The perceptual ‘something’ is always in the
middle of something else, it always forms part of a ‘field’ … The pure impression is, therefore, not
only undiscoverable, but also imperceptible and so inconceivable as an instant of perception”.
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A qualitative feel, insofar as it relates to a perceptual ‘something’ that belongs to a ‘field’, merely
adds a sensory aspect to this dyad.
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It is worth noting that for gestaltists perception is not preceded by sensation, but is a primary and
immediate process (Kanizsa, 1979, 1980). With respect to the perceptual situations usually studied by
gestaltists, at the basis of the laws of segmentation of the visual field, the simplest one should be
identified, such as seeing a shape against a homogeneous background (Todorovic, 2008). Unlike
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qualia, this very simple perceptual situation has a structure. The quality of being an object is primary
because it derives exclusively from characteristics present in the stimulus. There is no need to bring
anything up from memory in order to see an object against the background of something. “According
to Gestalt psychology all perceptual organization depends only on autochthonous factors, that is, on
factors that are all in the stimulus, thereby they do not depend on previous knowledge, expectancies,
voluntary sets, intentions of the observer” (Luccio, 2011).
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In the perception of an object against a background, we cannot ignore the role of contrast. In this
respect, the relational nature of the dark shade of an object emerges even more clearly in its primary
relationship with the background. Before being more or less dark, i.e., having a shade that
distinguishes it from other shades, the role of a gray or black object is to contrast with a light
background in order to be seen. In other words, it is to make perception possible. In this respect, it
does not differ in any way from a light object, which must contrast with a dark background in order
to be seen. This means that something dark, before being dark, and therefore in relation to something
outside the field of the stimulus, must be perceptually “something” through its contrast with the
background to which it belongs.
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In the structure of the stimulus, what corresponds to the relationship between an object and what
surrounds it is the contrast between two concentric regions. This contrast is a precondition for
perceptibility, in the sense of being able to consciously perceive something (Forti, 2015). Thus, the
conditions for the emergence of an elementary form of phenomenal experience do not depend on the
– metaphorical – turning on of the light of consciousness, but on the development of a certain kind of
relationship between darkness and light. Light certainly illuminates an object in darkness, but
darkness also makes something light visible. Total darkness, as well as total light, caused by the
absence of a contrast between the object and what surrounds it, are incompatible with any form of
consciousness, as suggested by the Ganzfeld effect (Schmidt, et al., 2020). In this sense, even the
redness of red, if it coincides with the entire phenomenal experience at a given point in time, would
consist in the impossibility of seeing anything.
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The role of the relationship between subject and object in the basic phenomenal structure remains to
be clarified. The question is whether this apparently obvious role (Searle, 2004; Damasio, 2010) is a
fundamental aspect of this structure. If the basic aspect of consciousness is perception in its simplest
forms, it appears less intimately linked to subjectivity than sensations. It is certainly true that all our
conscious experiences are subjective. However, when we turn our attention to the outside world, our
conscious experiences are not characterized by introspective awareness (Seager, 2002). When we
become absorbed in some intense perceptual task, we are vividly conscious but, often, we may lose
the sense of self (Tononi and Koch, 2008). If we hypothetically eliminated the subjective component
of consciousness, the phenomenal problem of vision – about why a red triangle appears as such and it
is not just a configuration eliciting a response – would still remain unsolved. The fact that a red
triangle appears to us cannot be the only element accounting for its appearance and for its
phenomenal ontology (Forti, 2009). It is therefore possible to temporarily set aside the problem of
subjectivity. As Merleau Ponty (1945) points out, “it is the very notion of the immediate which is
transformed: henceforth the immediate is no longer the impression, the object which is one with the
subject, but the meaning, the structure, the spontaneous arrangement of parts.”
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Being in the middle of something else could therefore be the basis for the construction of a thirdperson phenomenal structure. It should be pointed out that the perception of a figure against a
background cannot be equated with the mere result of an operation like the assignment of borders, to
which cognitive science attributes the choice of the object (Williford and von der Heydt, 2013). Ever
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since Rubin's first descriptions, it has been clear that a figure seen against the background of
something has purely phenomenal characteristics. The figure has an object-like character, and there is
a tendency to see the figure as positioned in front, and the ground at a further depth plane and
continuing to extend behind the figure. Furthermore, the border separating the two segments is
perceived as delineating the figure's shape as its contour, whereas it is irrelevant to the shape of the
ground (Todorovic, 2008). On this basis, rather than with qualia and simple sensations, basic
consciousness might coincide with conscious perceptibility and the structural aspect associated with
it.
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Consciousness has a function
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Also in this case, consciousness should not only have a function, but also have it as such. Again, the
concept of quale proves problematic, as it refers to the raw sensations of an experience separate from
any cognitive or behavioral effects which the experience might have (Farber and Churchland, 1995;
Tye, 2021). The problematic nature of qualia can also be extended to other forms of phenomenal
consciousness (Block, 1995; Morsella, 2003). Another problem is the one of panpsychism. IIT takes
no position on the function of experience as such – similar to physics not having anything to say
about the function of mass or charge (Tononi and Koch, 2015). However, consciousness is different
from mass or charge. As a biological phenomenon, it must necessarily have a function. Theoretically,
also the evolutionary perspective could be compatible with the epiphenomenalism of consciousness
(Halligan and Oakley, 2021). However, it is difficult to argue this when we consider the
pervasiveness of experience and its centrality in mental functioning (Lindahl, 1997; Pauen, et al.,
2006; Earl, 2014; Baumeister, et al., 2018).
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It is very likely that the function of consciousness – as such – is related to information processing.
This would mean that, from an evolutionary point of view, consciousness would have been selected
to provide something that a Neurocomputational (NC) brain (Churchland, 1989, 1995; Churchland
and Sejnowski, 1992; Piccinini and Bahar, 2013) in the broad sense is unable to do or finds very
difficult to do. NC brains do not involve consciousness in their functioning (Overgaard, 2006) and
they are based on serial or parallel information processing programs designed to deal with a
predictable universe. This view clashes with many theories of consciousness, whereby it is a
particular aspect of the NC organization that causes consciousness.
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Moreover, such a function is difficult to conceive, since we are starting from the assumption that a
processor can perform any kind of function related to information. We would have to imagine that in
a biological organism there is some kind of function related to information that a NC brain finds
difficult to perform and for which consciousness is more suitable. We would have to imagine that
this function is performed by non-computational processes, which is even less easy to do. If the
function of consciousness as such is related to information processing, and if the function performed
by a non-conscious brain is computational, the function performed by consciousness can only lie
within certain limits of the computational function, so it cannot be of a computational nature.
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If a function performed by non-computational processes is difficult to conceive, a conscious function
performed by computational processes of a certain kind – which most authors support – is logically
untenable. Supposing that computational processes do not have significant limitations in performing
the functions necessary for biological organisms, we should hypothesize that some of them give rise
to conscious experiences. Assuming this is the case, it is not possible for conscious experiences
generated by computational processes to perform a functional role in the same computational
processes, or in computational processes of another kind. Whatever solution we try to give to the
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problem – which we may define as the double translation problem – leads us back to NC processes,
which do not require a conscious nature to have a causal effect on other NC processes (Jackendoff,
1990; Bechtel, 1988; Dennett, 1991, 2018). From this point of view, consciousness may be compared
to a computer screen. If there was no human user, why would a processor project an internally
codified image on a screen if, in order to elaborate it further, the processor would have to translate it
back to the previous format? The image on the screen helps the human user to interact with the
machine, but it has no functional meaning for the actual processor operations (Forti, 2009). This
would result in epiphenomenalism and in the impossibility of assigning a function to consciousness.
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The idea of a conscious function on a non-computational basis is compatible with the empirical
evidence showing that NC organization does not seem capable of explaining phenomenal experience
in any way. This does not seem to be the case even if we hypothesize a more complex NC
organization than the existing ones. Ultimately, this is the explanatory gap – or, at least, an
explanatory gap revolving around computational and traditional brain processes. In this sense, rather
than representing a hard problem, consciousness would represent a computationally unsolvable
problem.
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Accepting the assumptions that consciousness exists, is material, and has a function has an additional
consequence. We can indeed assume that, if conscious functions have been selected in the course of
evolution, they have been added to the NC functions, somehow integrating with them. We must
therefore assume the existence of forms of interaction between conscious functions and NC
functions. If we then assume that consciousness appeared before the human species, we must refer to
brains far less evolved than ours, in which a consciousness-mediated function made a difference in
terms of adaptive advantage. It is also reasonable to assume that the presence of consciousness
stimulated additional NC functions that could only have occurred in the presence of consciousness.
Consequently, the subsequent development of mental functions would have been based not on
consciousness alone or on the NC brain alone, but on the integration of NC and conscious functions.
It is thus on an integration between NC functions and conscious functions, rather than on a mere
conscious function, that we should measure the adaptive advantage of consciousness. In more
advanced organizations, this integration would occur at progressively more complex levels.
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This poses a not insignificant methodological problem. If consciousness has a function, it is
presumable that our mind and our phenomenal experience itself are an expression of this integration
of conscious processes and NC processes (Morsella, 2003). It is now clear that many mental
processes that we carry out, and which we considered fully conscious many years ago, have a large
unconscious component. However, we do not know to what extent conscious processes and NC
processes are present, nor what relationship exists between them. As mentioned above, the idea that
consciousness receives the result of unconscious processes does not seem tenable, all the more so
because it would deprive the idea of a conscious function of its meaning. Nor is it certain that
conscious and unconscious functions can easily be separated, or that consciousness exists only at
higher levels, since it is already present at the perceptual level. It is much more likely that the
conscious and NC functions are closely intertwined, with the consequent difficulties that such a
relationship entails. The identification of the conscious function thus entails the need to isolate it
from the overall mental function, which also includes the non-conscious function. Consequently, the
challenge is to disentangle the conscious processes from the non-conscious ones, again starting with
the simplest ones where possible.
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If the simplest aspects of perception are at the basis of the phenomenal structure, a related functional
field is the one of early visual perceptual processes, which have been studied above all by gestaltists.
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In this regard, a promising distinction could be the one made by Kanizsa between primary and
secondary processes (Kanizsa, 1979, 1991). As Luccio (2008) states, “usually in psychology when
we speak about perception, we refer at least to two different concepts. The first meaning refers to an
immediate segmentation of the field, which appears to the awareness as a plurality of distinct objects,
before and independently from the attribution of any meaning. The second meaning, however, refers
to the identification of such objects, with their categorization and recognition. One can note that it is
the first concept, specifically visual, that Kanizsa called primary, while the second, primarily
cognitive concept, he called secondary”.
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According to Kanizsa (1985), “the formation of a visual object as an entity separate from other
objects must occur before the object can be identified.” Whatever the nature of the primary process,
the merit of Gestalt theory has been to identify in it something substantially different from cognitive
processes. One hypothesis could be to equate what we call cognitive processes with NC – hence not
conscious – processes, and to equate the primary process with a conscious process instead. In this
case, such a distinction could help to identify simple functional aspects which could be a starting
point to formulate future theories of consciousness.
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Conclusion
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I have analyzed the implications for a theory of consciousness of three basic assumptions:
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- consciousness exists;
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- consciousness is material;
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- consciousness has a function.
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As I argued, these assumptions can be reformulated as follows:
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- consciousness exists in a specific form;
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- consciousness has a structure as such;
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- consciousness has a function as such.
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Regarding existence, it is not sufficient to refute positions such as eliminative materialism or
consciousness denial. By referring to non-specific forms of consciousness, many theories risk
describing phenomena that exist in the absence of consciousness. If we do not refer to consciousness
as such, we are likely to attribute the structure that characterizes every physical phenomenon to the
physical substrate and not to the experience itself. In a similar way, the functional role must belong to
consciousness as such. Otherwise, due to the double translation problem, function remains in
Neurocomputational processes, with the consequence of falling back into epiphenomenalism.
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The joint implications of these assumptions significantly restrict the field in which to identify the
most suitable forms of consciousness to be investigated first. We have to set aside states that coincide
with consciousness in the broad sense of access or with properties such as unity, integration,
intentionality, and changeability, and to prioritize phenomenal consciousness. Of course, this does
not mean, for example, that consciousness is not integrated and should not be characterized as such.
Moreover, it is necessary to identify the simplest structural and functional aspects of consciousness
not in qualia or in raw feelings, but in the basic phenomenal aspects of visual perception. As
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Merleau-Ponty (1945) points out, a figure on a background is the very definition of the phenomenon
of perception, that without which a phenomenon cannot be said to be perception at all. The
perceptual ‘something’ is always in the middle of something else, it is always part of a ‘field’.
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Conflict of Interest
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The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial
relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Author Contributions
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The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.
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