1. Consciousness & Causality
Dr Magda Osman
Room 2.25
Office hours Mondays

2. Course outline Lecture 11 & 12 Sleep Lectures 1 & 2 Lectures 21 & 22
Theoretical Views
Lecture 13 & 14
Dreams
Lectures 15 & 16
Causality
Lectures 17 & 18
Mental Causation
Lectures 19 & 20
Causality & Control
Lectures 1 & 2
Minds and Bodies
Theoretical Views
Lectures 3 & 4
Hypnosis
Lectures 5 & 6
Implicit Decision making
Lectures 7 & 8
Implicit learning Beh I
Lectures 9 & 10
Implicit learning Beh II
Lectures 21 & 22
Revision Lecture

3. Minds & Bodies

4. Learning objectives
1. to understand the different conceptual approaches to understanding the relationship between mind and brain (i.e. monist, dualist perspectives)
2. to understand how the different empirical approaches to examining consciousness connect to monist and dualist perspectives

5. Do you believe that your mind controls your actions
Yes No
Not sure

6. Do you think that there are exceptions in which your mind has no control over your actions?
Yes No
Not sure

7. “Cogito ergo sum” Descartes (1596-1650)
Q: What can we know with certainty?
A – One can only be certain of is ones own conscious awareness
- Consciousness – reflects the mind
- Consciousness – is not the body
- Mind and Body are therefore different?

8. Conceptions of the Mind-Body association
Monism
Idealism – There are only mental things that exist – there is nothing outside of our experiences of our mental states
(i.e. only Minds)
Materialism – There are only material things that exist – the physical/biological/neurological
(i.e. only bodies)

9. Conceptions of the Mind-Body association
Dualism
Substance dualism [Descartes]– material (brain) cannot think, and the mind has no physical capability – they are made up of two different substances material/mental {or Qualia}
one doesn’t reduce to the other.
They can both operate entirely independently of each other
Property dualism – same as above, but for the fact that non-physical (i.e. mental substances) exist in physical substances (i.e. the brain), because there is only one substance with different properties [Mind/brain]
The brain is the connection between the mind and body

10. So what? Cutaneous rabbit effect (CRE)
Rapid taps to the wrist, then to the elbow, can create an illusion of touches between the two, as if a rabbit has hopped up the arm. The effect depends on the time interval between the taps
(CRE, Geldard & Sherrick, 1972; Flach & Haggard, 2006).
The CRE has been used to illustrate how the brain constructs the subjective experience of time.

11. Cutaneous rabbit effect
Illusion of conscious experiences of Space or Time
Using FMRI - show that illusion activated those parts of the somatosensory cortex
– the area of the brain processing touch signals – that correspond to the points of illusory contact.
(Blankenburg, Ruff, Deichmann, Rees, & Driver, 2006)
(for Review - Brooks, J., & Trojan, J. (2017). The Cutaneous Rabbit Effect: Phenomenology and saltation. Scholarpedia, 12(12), 52363)
The brain makes assumptions (not always correctly) on the basis of input from the senses (i.e. tapping on the hand).
The brain 'filling in' is carried out within brain areas responsible for conscious processing
And recruits areas which at the cortical level would suggest that the sensation is not imagined by REAL
Are mental substances influencing physical substances?

12. Cutaneous rabbit effect
Illusion of conscious experience of time & space & causality
On the one hand (represent time and space separately)
an explicit representation of time interacts with a tactile representation of space to produce the time-dependent mislocalization effects
i.e. concept of time passing fills in the passing of effects on space (i.e. skin across the arm) – the ordering of events suggest a causal link between events – hence a rabbit hopping across the arm.
(see Asai & Kanayama 2012)

13. Recap: what is monism? The mind doesn’t reduce to the brain
The brain doesn’t reduce to the mind
There is only one type of thing (either brain or mind)

14. Recap: what is dualism?
The mind and brain operate in entirely separate ways
There is only one type of thing (either brain or mind)

15. Relationship between Mental & Physical
How are minds and bodies related?
Interactive substance
Mental and Physical substances interact directly with each other
Psychophysical parallelism
Mental and Physical substances exist in parallel, and do not interact with each other

16. Problems with Dualism
How can non-physical substances influences physical substances? (i.e. CRE)
How can the non-physical be localized to the physical?
Why are there corresponding changes to consciousness when there are changes to physical states?

17. Do we need Dualism?
Dualism is unable to account for all phenomena that current neuroscience has revealed
Cognitive consciousness has been explained by reference to the physical, and this is largely through new empirical methods (EEG/MEEG/TMS/fMRI)
Dualism is not necessarily the most parsimonious explanation
Prescribing two types of substances is not as simple as describing just one

18. If not Dualism, then what?
Materialism
Epiphenomalism [an indirect form of dualism]
Mind is a by product of the brain, the mind cannot influence the brain (Leibniz, Spinoza – latter day behaviourists)
Identity theory [form of physicalism]
States of the mind correlate with states of the brain (Hobbes)
Functionalism {either materialism/dualism}
Mental states have functional relationships to behaviour [causal roles] (Chomsky)
Emergent interactionism
States of the mind emerge from states of the brain [as a process of interaction of mind and brain – and even external world] (Vandervert, Sperry)

19. Epiphenomalism
Scientific explanation should be attached to phenomena that are observable (i.e. measurable).
E.g. any inferred state of mind
beliefs, desires, ideas, hopes, fears, feelings x
Inferred mental states are not useful descriptions of causal phenomena
Explanations of behaviour should depend on external factors
e.g. reinforcers which can be positive (presentation of desirable outcome) or negative (removal of undesirable outcome)

20. The main principles A theory of behaviour should be built around:
The Stimulus (the external determinant of behaviour)
The Response (the observable external behaviour)
The Reinforcer (the external factor that maintains behaviour)
The Consequences (the way in which behaviour is shaped)
Human behavior is a set of variable that responds to the environment, because:
of the selective action of that environment during the evolution of the species
its effect in shaping and maintaining our repertoire of behaviors
of its role as the occasion upon which behavior occurs – i.e. the trigger

21. Game 1: Paper, scissors, stone
Skinner Wins

22. Game 2: Paper, scissors, stone
I Win

23. Link to Epiphenomalism
Game 1. I don’t need to know anything about mental states, I just need to need to know the motivators, and the consequence of actions
[this is depend on specifying the Environment]
Game 2. Skinner can perfectly predict my behaviour because he knows the conditions of the environment that will generate my behaviour (stimulus-response)
There is no need for any reference to mental states
Mental states don’t have any causal efficacy

24. Skinner Skinned
There is a difference in explaining how, and explaining away (Daniel Dennett)
The fact that simple mechanisms can explain away seemingly complex concepts
(wants, desires and intentions) – i.e. mental states
doesn’t explain why our behaviours appear as if it is dictated by wants, desires and intentions –
(i.e. mental states seem to have casual power)

25. Identity theory
Identity theory proposes that mind and brain correspond
Problem 1. – too narrow an approach if associating mental with only brains:
What about computers? What about other organisms?
Problem 2 - a subjective experience is different from the brain state that it is correlated with it (i.e. one is physical the other mental)
We can’t be sure that the mental and physical occupy the same space,
(e.g., dissociations between consciousness and electrophysiological activity in brain, Libet’s work)

26. Emergent interactionism
Sperry (split brain studies) – attempted to revive materialism by claiming the following:
The mind is an emergent property of brain functioning, and what it usefully does is read states of the brain and transform them to mental states – which feedback into the system.
Therefore, it is possible for consciousness to exert control on specific neural firings in the brain – subjective causation.

27. Subjective causation (Downward causation)
Emergent interactionism implies Downward causation
E.g. - if you decide to drive somewhere, your decision can activate a chain of events that will cause your car to move, according to the principles of downward causation.
But, it ignores Upward causation
E.g. - the movement of gasoline molecules cause the engine to work, thus causing your car to move.
It is important to remember that both of these perspectives are accurate and that they are complementary. One does not exclude the other.

28. Functionalism Functionalism
Being in a particular mental state is determined by the functional role of the state – i.e. mental state of pain has a functional role – it refers to an inner condition
This has lead to the analogy of the Computational mind
Mind as computer program
Brain as computer hardware
(Cognitive psychology is founded on this principle)
Problem – Can conscious states be exhaustively analysed in terms of function?

29. Back to the cutaneous rabbit effect
What is the best position to account for the cutaneous rabbit effect?
our conscious perception is not accurate, it is created after integrating sensory inputs that occur within a certain time window (Miyazaki, Hirashima, &Nozaki, 2010)
Monist?
Dualists?
For review of these positions and their implications for psychology Kreitler (2018)

30. Monist Dualist Interactionist
Which position is most consistent with what you think about the mind and brain?
Monist
Dualist
Interactionist

31. Summary II
Dualism, a current and more widely accepted approach to the understanding of behaviour
(many current theories of consciousness adopt this view)
Suggests that both material and mental events are necessary for behaviour to emerge.

32. Summary I (single)
Materialism (or monism) proposes that behaviour is strictly a function of physical events (i.e. the brain activities).
Typically, the physical events (behaviour observed by the outside world) are associated with or are directly a function of brain activity (Boring, 1950).
“The chief function of the brain is – thought, perhaps, or consciousness”

33. Summary III (interaction)
Interactive substance postulates that behaviour is mediated only by mental or cognitive functions, and that mental and physical substances interact with each other
E.g., Cutaneous rabbit effect