Does consciousness exist?--In what sense?
This commentary on Barutta et al. (IPBS: Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science 44:2, 2010) elaborates the authors' ideas from a new angle. The following positions of the authors are presented and analyzed: emergetism, two different languages of the description of the phenomena, and the notion of "efficient causality". A different approach to the issue of mind-brain interaction is suggested. The key idea of the approach is based not on posing select characteristics which the mind, the brain, or the human consciousness is supposed to have, but on the description of the logic of the activity of this global system, and of the structures that make this characteristics possible to exist.
Allakhverdov
Victor M
VM
Faculty of Psychology, St Petersburg State University, Nabereznaya Makarova 6, St Petersburg, Russia. vimiall@gmail.com
Gershkovich
Valeria A
VA
D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D015984:Causality; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology; D008960:Models, Psychological