Consciousness Emerging is in three parts, exploring
consciousness from different angles. The philosophical point of view, the first
angle, shows what are the central tasks of consciousness for representation,
intentionality, and for designing and following rules, as they have to be
performed for language understanding, and especially for denotational semantics
to be possible. The second, the connectionist and the neuro-cognitive
perspective, especially neuro-dynamical approaches, which model, at least
partially, how under a large-scale view the brain might work in achieving the
central tasks of consciousness. The third, "from a view which combines the
philosophical with the neuro-dynamical approach in order to find and determine
a standpoint about some disputed questions in consciousness research."

The first part consists of chapter 1, which deals with the function
consciousness has, mainly with respect to language, thinking, intentionality,
and the possibility to devise rules and norms and to learn and to follow these.
The central task performed by consciousness is entertaining representations
such that we can evaluate these under different points of view. An important
strain of argumentation in this chapter is the difference between causal
semantics and denotational semantics, and what role consciousness plays there
in order to make intentionality of semantics possible. A further point of
discussion is the nature of rules and norms and how they function in language
and in the linguistic reconstruction of language. Two standpoints that the
author argues for are that consciousness is possible without language, and that
"free will is possible because of the special contribution of
consciousness, which consists in providing representations of situations and
actions such that comparison and judgement is possible."

The second part consists of chapter 2 and 3, which explore the
contributions dynamic conceptual systems and connectionist models can make to
an explanation of the nature and function of representations. Chapter 2
elaborates the possibilities of dynamic conceptual semantics and the
possibilities and the shortcomings of plain connectionist models consisting
just of input, output, and one hidden map of units. The shortcomings are
evident with respect to modelling contiguity relationships, classification, and
the understanding of basic sentences. Chapter 3 is the central chapter of the
book, which shows how an architecture of connectionist maps with circuits of
activation in principle works as a model for perception, imagination, and for
understanding situations and basic sentences. The representations are percepts
or imaginations of situations and of basic sentence inscriptions, i.e. of
sentence utterances or written instances. Central is the notion of an episodic
map on which activation circuits involving conceptual maps and sensorial fields
get expressed in the form of the representations, which constitute
consciousness. The material basis of episodic maps is the primary sensorial and
pre-motor fields, emotional fields, and also proprioceptic fields, which
express feelings concerning our own body. Sensorial fields of the different
modalities, or sensorial maps, receive input from the respective sensors.
Pre-motor maps form gestures for realising the motor output. These maps have
connections to higher order maps, conceptual maps, in which groups of neurones
indicate when the system has classified and ordered input with respect to
previous input under similarity or contiguity relationships. From the higher
maps activation is sent back to the primary fields. Such circuits of
activation, namely those that hit the primary sensorial, emotional, and
pre-motor fields, receive an expression in consciousness. They have some
short-term stability in that the firing of the neurones involved is
co-ordinated in a certain oscillation. By hitting the primary fields in this
way the phenomenal qualities and forms are brought about which constitute
representations of situations, objects, and linguistic utterances. These
episodes are the conscious expressions of the primary fields in their
interaction with the conceptual maps. The role of episodic and conceptual maps
in understanding situations and sentences is explicated in the architecture of
maps, in which smaller and larger circuits form the constituent relationship
between understanding and interpretation (in the model-theoretic sense), is
elaborated on as a special capacity of consciousness. Thinking is seen as
manipulating representations on episodic maps, with constraints given by the
control through evaluation.

The main thesis of this book has
been that consciousness arises by "an interaction between primary
sensorial fields and conceptual maps in resonance circuits. These synchronized
circuits of activation constitute episodic maps, built on the primary sensorial
fields" (p.237). All consciousness is episodic, according to this thesis. The
episodes are "episodes of situations or episodes of linguistic
inscriptions, spoken or written or signed otherwise. The constituent structure
of situations and of linguistic inscriptions was modeled as a temporarily
induced architecture of smaller and larger activation circuits, which when
hitting a sensorial field, gives rise to a representation, which are conscious."
Continuing, the author postulates that there are no thoughts without language. "Thoughts
are either representations on linguistically specialized episodic maps, or on
situational episodic maps or on both together."

In the third part of the book
the thesis about the episodic character of consciousness takes up the controversial questions in
consciousness research. The questions are "whether consciousness is an
internal monitoring device of brain states, or rather a monitoring of the
external, whether all conscious states involve thought or judgement, whether
there are different kinds of consciousness, and whether there is a one-one
correspondence between (a certain kind of) brain states and conscious states."
The standpoint taken is derived from the evaluation of the arguments and the
position on consciousness developed in this book, namely that "consciousness
is a product of the episodic maps, i.e., of primary sensorial fields in their
interaction with conceptual maps, and that therefore all consciousness consists
of episodes in the form of representations, with or without their evaluations."

The foregoing is a challenging argument and knowing the contemporary
status of research in consciousness it is bound to raise eyebrows from several
sources.

 The author’s use of experimental evidence related to thought experiments
as support and use of contemporary position on neural networks and evidence
from semantics to bring home his thesis on ‘consciousness emerging’ makes the
text in the book fairly sophisticated requiring the reader to have a competent
information on the issues discussed.

© G. C. Gupta

G.C. Gupta, Ph.D., Formerly,
Professor of Psychology, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

Categories: Philosophical, Psychology