Videos by Max Velmans
This talk suggests a dual-aspect, monist way to understand the causal interactions of consciousne... more This talk suggests a dual-aspect, monist way to understand the causal interactions of consciousness and brain where conscious experiences and associated brain states are thought of as complementary first- and third-person ways of knowing the operations of a fundamentally psychophysical mind. The talk also discusses the consequences of this shift in perspective for clinical practice. Featured at a webinar hosted by the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society on 29.4.2021, it can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9x_X3HEmI 24 views
Consciousness Papers by Max Velmans
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Sep 1, 2002
My target article (henceforth referred to as TA) presents evidence for causal interactions betwee... more My target article (henceforth referred to as TA) presents evidence for causal interactions between consciousness and brain and some standard ways of accounting for this evidence in clinical practice and neuropsychological theory. I also point out some of the problems of understanding such causal interactions that are not addressed by standard explanations. Most of the residual problems have to do with how to cross the “explanatory gap” from consciousness to brain. I then list some of the reasons why the route across this gap suggested by physicalism won't work, in spite of its current popularity in consciousness studies. My own suggested route across the explanatory gap is more subterranean, where consciousness and brain can be seen to be dual aspects of a unifying, psychophysical mind. Some of the steps on this deeper route still have to be filled in by empirical research. But (as far as I can judge) there are no gaps that cannot be filled—just a different way of understanding consciousness, mind, brain and their causal interaction, with some interesting consequences for our understanding of free will. The commentaries on TA examined many aspects of my thesis viewed from both Western and Eastern perspectives. This reply focuses on how dual-aspect monism compares with currently popular alternatives such as “nonreductive physicalism”, clarifies my own approach, and reconsiders how well this addresses the “hard” problems of consciousness. We re-examine how conscious experiences relate to their physical/functional correlates and whether useful analogies can be drawn with other, physical relationships that appear to have dual-aspects. We also examine some fundamental differences between Western and Eastern thought about whether the existence of the physical world or the existence of consciousness can be taken for granted (with consequential differences about which of these is “hard” to understand). I then suggest a form of dual-aspect Reflexive Monism that might provide a path between these ancient intellectual traditions that is consistent with science and with common sense.
Additional Note for 2012 upload on Academia.edu: This reply responds to thoughtful commentaries on the target article by John Kihlstrom, Todd Feinberg, Steve Torrance, Robert van Gulick, Jeffrey Gray and K. Ramakrisna Rao. One commentary by Ron Chrisley and Aaron Sloman seriously misrepresented my views and then proceeded to criticize their own misrepresentation in ways that I make clear in my response. Ten years after its initial publication, as far as I ca tell, the analysis of consciousness-brain causal interactions presented in "How could conscious experience affect brains?" still conforms closely to both the findings of science and to everyday experience.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2022
This is a commentary on Merker, Williford & Rudrauf (2022), "The integrated information theory of... more This is a commentary on Merker, Williford & Rudrauf (2022), "The integrated information theory of consciousness: Unmasked and identified", a target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 45, e65. Merker, Williford & Rudrauf argue persuasively that integrated information is not identical to or sufficient for consciousness, and that projective geometries more closely formalize the spatial features of conscious phenomenology. However, these too, are not identical to or sufficient for consciousness. While such third-person specifiable functional theories can describe the many forms of consciousness, they cannot account for its existence. Main Text Merker, Williford & Rudrauf have provided a thoughtful, and, in my view, decisive critique of the IIT claim that "consciousness is one and the same as integrated information" (Tononi, 2008, Oizumi, Albantakis and Tononi, 2014). Rather, Φ (the formal measure of integrated information within IIT) is one measure of network efficiency, that can be applied to network information processing in general. For this reason, information integration efficiency can be doubly dissociated from consciousness. For example, there can there be efficient information flows in complex economic, social and transportation systems that are far removed from those usually thought to have a unified, integrated consciousness, and there is extensive evidence for efficient unconscious integrated information processing in systems that do have consciousness, namely human minds (see e.g., Velmans, 1991, Kihlstrom, 1996). If so, integrated information processing is not a sufficient condition for consciousness.
The American Journal of Psychology, 2002
Peter Dodwell’s analysis of what’s wrong with cognitive science suggests that the standard inform... more Peter Dodwell’s analysis of what’s wrong with cognitive science suggests that the standard information processing model of the mind characterises its computational functioning, but fails to capture much of human life, and has for that reason been largely ignored in popular culture. Folk psychology is more useful for organising everyday life, and what a dramatist, a novelist, or an adventurous and imaginative journalist has to say about life, about society and its follies, is simply more arresting, more insightful, more telling than what the cognitive scientist has to offer. Dodwell argues that we need a kind of mathematics of biological forms and mental life similar in power to that used to describe the physical world. This would be a formalisation of the mind’s “deep structure” in the manner of the deep grammatical structures formulated by Chomsky to describe language. In this review I assess both Dodwell’s critique of cognitive science and the prospects for his alternative program.
E. Kelly and P. Marshall (eds) Consciousness Unbound: Liberating Mind from the Tyranny of Materialism , 2021
This chapter examines the integrative nature of reflexive monism (RM), a psychological/philosophi... more This chapter examines the integrative nature of reflexive monism (RM), a psychological/philosophical model of a reflexive, self-observing universe that can accommodate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences in a natural, non-reductive way that avoids both the problems of reductive materialism and the (inverse) pitfalls of reductive idealism. To contextualize the ancient roots of the model, the chapter touches briefly on classical models of consciousness, mind and soul and how these differ in a fundamental way from how mind and consciousness are viewed in contemporary Western philosophy and psychological science. The chapter then travels step by step from such contemporary views towards reflexive monism, and towards the end of the chapter, to more detailed comparisons with Hindu Vedanta and Samkhya philosophy and with Cosmopsychism (a recently emergent, directly relevant area of philosophy of mind).
According to RM there never was a separation between what we normally think of as the “physical world” and what we think of as our “conscious experience”. In terms of its phenomenology, the phenomenal physical world is part-of conscious experience not apart-from it. This phenomenal world can be thought of as a biologically useful representation of what the world is like, although it is not the world as-described-by modern physics, and it is not the thing itself—supporting a form of indirect (critical) realism. The analysis then outlines how 3D phenomenal worlds are constructed by the mind/brain, focusing specifically on perceptual projection, and then demonstrates how normal, first-person conscious experiences (e.g. of phenomenal worlds) and their associated, third-person viewable neural correlates can be understood as dual manifestations of an underlying psychophysical mind, which can, in turn, be understood as a psychophysical form of information processing. This dual-aspect monism combines ontological monism with a form of epistemological dualism in which first- and third-person perspectives on the nature of mind are complementary and mutually irreducible—a principle that turns out to have wide-ranging applications for the study and understanding of consciousness.
The chapter then considers the evolution and wider distribution of consciousness (beyond humans) through a brief analysis of the many forms of discontinuity theory versus continuity theory and argues that to avoid the “hard problem” of consciousness one may need to treat its existence as fundamental, and, as co-evolving with the evolution of its associated material forms. This, in turn, takes one to a central issue: What does consciousness actually do? The analysis argues that its central function is to real-ize existence (to know it in a way that makes it subjectively real). With these foundations in place we then come to the heart of the essay—the ways in which reflexive monism provides a very different view of the nature of the universe to those offered either by dualism or materialist reductionism. As summarised in the last paragraph of this section, “In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”
The essay then considers the precise ways in which this reflexive monist understanding of “consciousness” and “mind” relates to later developments in Vedic philosophy and suggests a way of bridging contemporary Western and classical Vedic ways of understanding consciousness and mind. Finally, the chapter considers what can be said of mystical experience and the ground of being, following the principle that this ground must have the power to both manifest the universe in the form that science shows it to be and our ability to experience the universe in the way that we do. In this, RM is shown to be a dual-aspect monist form of cosmopsychism—a recent area of development within philosophy of mind. The essay compares and contrasts this with idealist versions of cosmopsychism and argues that RM allows for an integrated understanding of realism versus idealism, dualism versus monism, how ordinary experience relates to mystical experience, and how consciousness relates to mind. RM also provides an ‘open’ conceptual system that can, in principle, incorporate a range of parapsychological effects.
This interview with Richard Bright of Interalia Magazine provides a brief summary of how I define... more This interview with Richard Bright of Interalia Magazine provides a brief summary of how I define consciousness, whether consciousness is incidental or fundamental, and whether, in the light of recent discoveries in neuroscience, the concept of consciousness need revising. I then give a brief introduction to Reflexive Monism, and we go on to discuss whether there is a “hard problem”, the viability of panpsychism and my distinction between continuity and discontinuity theories about the distribution of consciousness. We then turn to the potential benefits of a more collaborative combination of third-person science with first-person methods of the kind used in contemplative practice and review some of the most important questions facing consciousness studies at this time.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Jan 1, 2009
Definitions of consciousness need to be sufficiently broad to include all examples of conscious s... more Definitions of consciousness need to be sufficiently broad to include all examples of conscious states and sufficiently narrow to exclude entities, events and processes that are not conscious. Unfortunately, deviations from these simple principles are common in modern consciousness studies, with consequent confusion and internal division in the field. The present paper gives example of ways in which definitions of consciousness can be either too broad or too narrow. It also discusses some of the main ways in which pre-existing theoretical commitments (about the nature of consciousness, mind and world) have intruded into definitions. Similar problems can arise in the way a “conscious process” is defined, potentially obscuring the way that conscious phenomenology actually relates to its neural correlates and antecedent causes in the brain, body and external world. Once a definition of “consciousness” is firmly grounded in its phenomenology, investigations of its ontology and its relationships to entities, events and processes that are not conscious can begin, and this may in time transmute the meaning (or sense) of the term. As our scientific understanding of these relationships deepen, our understanding of what consciousness is will also deepen. A similar transmutation of meaning (with growth of knowledge) occurs with basic terms in physics such as "energy", and "time."
Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be redu... more Dualist and Reductionist theories of mind disagree about whether or not consciousness can be reduced to a state of or function of the brain. They assume, however, that the contents of consciousness are separate from the external physical world as-perceived. According to the present paper this assumption has no foundation either in everyday experience or in science. Drawing on evidence for perceptual projection in both interoceptive and exteroceptive sense modalities, the case is made that the physical world as-perceived is a construct of perceptual processing and, therefore, part of the contents of consciousness. A finding which requires a Reflexive rather than a Dualist or Reductionist model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. The physical world as-perceived may, in turn be thought of as a biologically useful model of the world as described by physics. Redrawing the boundaries of consciousness to include the physical world as-perceived undermines the conventional separation of the 'mental' from the physical', and with it the very foundation of the Dualist-Reductionist debate. The alternative Reflexive model departs radically from current conventions, with consequences for many aspects of consciousness theory and research. Some of the consequences which bear on the internal consistency and intuitive plausibility of the model are explored, e.g. the causal sequence in perception, representationalism, a suggested resolution of the Realism versus Idealism debate, and the way manifest differences between physical events as-perceived and other conscious events (images, dreams, etc.) are to be construed.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Jan 1, 2008
Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material wor... more Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming “out-thereness” of the phenomenal world and to how the “phenomenal world” relates to the “physical world”, the “world itself”, and processing in the brain. In order to place the theory within the context of current thought and debate, I address questions that have been raised about reflexive monism in recent commentaries and also evaluate competing accounts of the same issues offered by “transparency theory” and by “biological naturalism”. I argue that, of the competing views on offer, reflexive monism most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense.
In M. Velmans and Y. Nagasawa (eds.) (2012) Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to Physicalism, 19 (9-10) pp. 143-165.
This paper provides an initial, multidimensional map of the complex relationships among conscious... more This paper provides an initial, multidimensional map of the complex relationships among consciousness, mind, brain and the external world in a way that follows both the contours of everyday experience and the findings of science. It then demonstrates how this reflexive monist map can be used to evaluate the utility and resolve some of the oppositions of the many other “isms” that currently populate consciousness studies. While no conventional, one-dimensional “ism” such as physicalism can do justice to this web of relationships, physicalism, functionalism, dualism, neutral monism, and dual-aspect monism can all be seen to provide useful ways of understanding different aspects of the relationships among consciousness, mind, brain and the external world when these are viewed in either a first- or a third-person way from within this web of relationships by sentient creatures such as ourselves. For example, physicalism and functionalism provide a useful understanding of consciousness, mind, brain and external world when viewed from a third-person perspective, while neutral monism provides a useful way of understanding first- versus third-person views of external phenomena. On the other hand, dual-aspect monism provides a useful way of understanding first- versus third-person views of mind, including Eastern versus Western views of mind. Dual-aspect monism also provides a useful understanding of the “unconscious ground of being” that gives rise to, supports and embeds all these observable phenomena. For an integrated understanding one needs to understand how these phenomena and relationships combine into an integrated whole.
The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, 2007
Abstract (added for 2013 upload): This chapter compares classical dualist and reductionist views ... more Abstract (added for 2013 upload): This chapter compares classical dualist and reductionist views of phenomenal consciousness with an alternative, reflexive way of viewing the relations amongst consciousness, brain and the external physical world. It argues that dualism splits the universe in two fundamental ways: in viewing phenomenal consciousness as having neither location nor extension it splits consciousness from the material world, and subject from object. Materialist reductionism views consciousness as a brain state or function (located and extended in the brain) which eliminates the consciousness/material world split, but retains the split of subject from object. The chapter argues that neither dualism nor reductionism accurately describes the phenomenal world; consequently they each provide a misleading understanding of phenomenal consciousness. Reflexive monism follows the contours of everyday experience, thereby allowing a more unified understanding of how phenomenal consciousness relates to the brain and external physical world that is consistent both with the findings of science and with common sense. The chapter goes on to consider how phenomenal objects relate to real objects, perceptual projection, how phenomenal space relates to physical space, whether the brain is in the world or the world in the brain, and why this matters for science.
This is a pre-publication version of a paper given at an invitation-only International Symposium ... more This is a pre-publication version of a paper given at an invitation-only International Symposium on The Return of Consciousness: A new science on old questions, on 14th-15th June, 2015 in Avesta Manor, Sweden, hosted by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation. The paper summarizes the basic differences between dualist, reductionist and reflexive models of perception, clarifies why these differences are important to an understanding of consciousness, and provides references to how these contrasts have entered into philosophical and scientific discussions over the 25 years since they were first introduced in Velmans (1990) ‘Consciousness, Brain and the Physical World’, Philosophical Psychology, 3, 77-99. The paper concludes that there never was an unbridgeable divide separating “physical phenomena” from the “contents of consciousness”. Physical objects and events as perceived are part of the contents of consciousness—which alters the nature of the “hard problem of consciousness” and provides the departure point for reflexive monism.
B. S. Prasad (ed.) "Consciousness Gandhi and Yoga: Interdisciplinary, East-West Odyssey of K.Ramakrishna Rao" New Delhi: D.K.Printworld, pp. 107-139., 2013
Over the millennia, there have been irresolvable tensions between monist and dualist thought in b... more Over the millennia, there have been irresolvable tensions between monist and dualist thought in both Eastern and Western analyses of the relations among body, mind and consciousness. This paper compares two approaches to resolving such tensions, Reflexive Monism (RM), a model of the self-observing universe that resolves many of the oppositions in Western thought, and K. Ramakrisna Rao’s Eastern, Body-Mind-Consciousness (BMC) “Trident” model, which focuses on the convergences between dualist Samkya Yoga and monist Advaita Vedanta. According to Reflexive Monism, many opposing analyses of body-mind-consciousness relationships in Western thought can be treated as different (often complementary) views of the one global system by parts of itself, from within itself. According to the BMC Trident model, many of the tensions between dualist Samkya and monist Advaita can be resolved by noting the similarity in their analyses of the human condition and the developmental processes required to provide a release from the limitations of that condition. In spite of the very different (Western and Eastern) traditions that inform them, there are many convergences between RM and BMC although there are also some major differences, for example in their grounding ontology and their respective analyses of body-mind-consciousness causal relationships. In this paper I examine both the convergences and divergences in detail.
(for online upload) The readings in Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness (2000) were developed ... more (for online upload) The readings in Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness (2000) were developed from an International Symposium on Methodologies for the Study of Consciousness: A new Synthesis, " that I organised in April, 1996, funded and hosted by the Fetzer Institute, Wisconsin, USA, with the aim of fostering the development of first-person methods that could be used in conjunction with already well-developed third-person methods for investigating phenomenal consciousness. In this Introduction, we briefly survey the state of the art at that time, the reasons for a resurgence of interest in consciousness, the available methodologies, the reasons for increasing dissatisfaction with the adequacy of reductive third-person methods, various difficulties facing the development of rigorous first-person methods, and various creative approaches to solving these difficulties. Suggestions are also made about how to heal the fragmentation in consciousness studies, by placing different approaches to the study of consciousness into a broader context, establishing their domain of applicability and providing some bases for synthesis.
Investigating phenomenal consciousness: New …, 2000
This overview of Consciousness Studies examines the conditions that one has to satisfy to establi... more This overview of Consciousness Studies examines the conditions that one has to satisfy to establish a scientific investigation of phenomenal consciousness. Written from the perspective experimental psychology, it follows a two-pronged approach in which traditional third-person methods for investigating the brain and physical world are complementary to first-person methods for investigating subjective experience allowing the possibility of finding “bridging laws” that relate such first- and third-person data to each other. Mindful of the relative sophistication of third-person methods the chapter focuses on the problems of developing similarly sophisticated first-person methods. The problems are of three kinds: (1) Epistemological problems: How can one obtain public, objective knowledge about private, subjective experiences? (2) Methodological problems: Given that one cannot attach measuring instruments directly up to experiences, what psychological “instruments” and procedures are appropriate to their study? (3) The relation of the observer to the observed: The more closely coupled an observer is with an observed, the greater the potential influence of the act of observation on the nature of the observed (“observer effects”). Given this, how can one develop introspective and phenomenological methods where the observer is the observed? The chapter argues that the epistemological problems are more apparent than real, although this requires one to construe what is private versus public, and what is subjective or intersubjective versus what is objective in a slightly different way—with some enabling consequences for a science of consciousness. Methodological problems are real, but not fundamentally different to the problems traditionally faced in experimental psychological investigations of mental phenomena. The close-coupling of observer with the observed in first-person investigations can also be a problem, producing “observer effects” that are more acute than in most third-person investigations. The chapter suggests that one can either try to minimise such effects or to harness them, depending on the purpose of the investigation.
Progress in brain research 168. Models of Brain and Mind: Physical, Computational and Psychological Approaches, 2007
Modern consciousness studies are in a healthy state, with many progressive empirical programmes i... more Modern consciousness studies are in a healthy state, with many progressive empirical programmes in cognitive science, neuroscience and related sciences, using relatively conventional third-person research methods. However not all the problems of consciousness can be resolved in this way. These problems may be grouped into problems that require empirical advance, those that require theoretical advance, and those that require a re-examination of some of our pre-theoretical assumptions. I give examples of these, and focus on two problems—what consciousness is, and what consciousness does—that require all three. In this, careful attention to conscious phenomenology and finding an appropriate way to relate first-person evidence to third-person evidence appears to be central to progress. But we may also need to re-examine what we take to be “natural facts” about the world, and how we can know them. The same appears to be true for a trans-cultural understanding of consciousness that combines classical Indian phenomenological methods with the third-person methods of Western science.
Toward a science of consciousness II: The second …, Jan 1, 1998
This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically c... more This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically characterise experience in ways which do not correspond to ordinary experience, and that to understand consciousness one must start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. Only then can one develop an understanding of how experiences viewed from a first-person perspective relate to events in the brain viewed from a third-person perspective. The paper then lists some common arguments for conscious experiences (accurately described) being nothing more than brain states along with their fallacies. It concludes that there are fundamental problems with ontological reductionism of conscious experiences to brain states that cannot be resolved.
Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to Physicalism, Oct 2012
This Introduction to a Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to P... more This Introduction to a Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to Physicalism summarises some of the basic problems of Physicalism and common fallacies in arguments for its defence that are found in the philosophical and scientific literature. It then introduces six monist alternatives: 1) a form of emergent panpsychism developed by William Seager; 2) a novel introduction to the process philosophy of A.N. Whitehead by Anderson Weekes; 3) a review of current developments in Russellian Monism by Torin Alter and Yujin Nagasawa; 4) an analysis of dual-aspect monism and its relation to quantum mechanics originally proposed developed by Pauli and Jung and given a modern interpretation by Harald Atmanspacher; 5) a form of processing monism that might help to resolve ontological differences in Indian philosophy and psychology between dualist Samkya Yoga and nondualist Advaita Vedanta by K. Ramakrisna Rao; and 6) an account of Reflexive Monism, which, viewed as a global system, can incorporate many of the seemingly opposed “isms” that currently populate Consciousness Studies by Max Velmans. Whatever the fundamental nature of Nature might be, it must have the power to give rise to its observable manifestations. Consequently, all the papers in this issue are concerned to give a “natural” account of the relationships among consciousness, mind, and the material world that is entirely consistent with the findings of science, and they all accept that for a unified understanding, mind, consciousness and the material world must have a common base. The aim of the Special Issue is to contribute to a deeper understanding of that base, and to stimulate novel thinking about its nature.
This online version of my review of Stanislas Dehaene’s (2014) book on Consciousness and the Brai... more This online version of my review of Stanislas Dehaene’s (2014) book on Consciousness and the Brain adds a descriptive title, but is otherwise as it appears in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. In it, I conclude that the book offers an excellent introduction to the neuropsychology of consciousness that focuses largely on developments that have taken place over the last 15 years or so. The book ranges widely, starting with an account of how the processes that support consciousness in the brain have become increasingly open to experimental study, giving a fresh analysis of the extent of preconscious/unconscious processing, moving on to suggest what consciousness is good for when it appears, how to detect its presence by use of third-person observable neurophysiological signatures, incorporating these signatures into a version of the currently popular “global workspace model” of consciousness—and finally, suggesting some clinical application of the emerging research and some speculations about new frontiers, for example how the emerging science might be applied to the assessment of consciousness in babies and non-human animals. Dehaene also does not shy away from fundamental philosophical questions, adopting an unashamedly materialist-reductionist view of the nature of consciousness and mind, which, he believes, follows naturally from the advances in research that he surveys. In my review I accordingly address the book’s three central themes: (a) the advances in neuropsychological understanding of the conditions for consciousness in the human brain, (b) whether the emerging research leads naturally to a materialist-reductionist view of the nature of consciousness and mind, and (c) the scope and possible limits of the global workspace model of consciousness. Overall, I applaud the science that the book describes, but unravel the problems associated with Dehaene’s materialist reductionism.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1995
This commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousnes... more This commentary elaborates on Gray's conclusion that his neurophysiological model of consciousness might explain how consciousness arises from the brain, but does not address how consciousness evolved, affects behaviour or confers survival value. The commentary argues that such limitations apply to all neurophysiological or other third-person perspective models. To approach such questions the first-person nature of consciousness needs to be taken seriously in combination with third-person models of the brain.
Added notes for 2013 online version: Nearly 20 years after its original publication this commentary on Jeffrey Gray’s thoughtful BBS target article still has contemporary relevance as, within an exclusively third-person evolutionary paradigm the evolution and function of first-person consciousness continues to present difficulties. Those interested in these issues may also want to look at my more recent online papers that address this in more detail, particularly The evolution of consciousness (2012) and Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness? (2011)
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Videos by Max Velmans
Consciousness Papers by Max Velmans
Additional Note for 2012 upload on Academia.edu: This reply responds to thoughtful commentaries on the target article by John Kihlstrom, Todd Feinberg, Steve Torrance, Robert van Gulick, Jeffrey Gray and K. Ramakrisna Rao. One commentary by Ron Chrisley and Aaron Sloman seriously misrepresented my views and then proceeded to criticize their own misrepresentation in ways that I make clear in my response. Ten years after its initial publication, as far as I ca tell, the analysis of consciousness-brain causal interactions presented in "How could conscious experience affect brains?" still conforms closely to both the findings of science and to everyday experience.
According to RM there never was a separation between what we normally think of as the “physical world” and what we think of as our “conscious experience”. In terms of its phenomenology, the phenomenal physical world is part-of conscious experience not apart-from it. This phenomenal world can be thought of as a biologically useful representation of what the world is like, although it is not the world as-described-by modern physics, and it is not the thing itself—supporting a form of indirect (critical) realism. The analysis then outlines how 3D phenomenal worlds are constructed by the mind/brain, focusing specifically on perceptual projection, and then demonstrates how normal, first-person conscious experiences (e.g. of phenomenal worlds) and their associated, third-person viewable neural correlates can be understood as dual manifestations of an underlying psychophysical mind, which can, in turn, be understood as a psychophysical form of information processing. This dual-aspect monism combines ontological monism with a form of epistemological dualism in which first- and third-person perspectives on the nature of mind are complementary and mutually irreducible—a principle that turns out to have wide-ranging applications for the study and understanding of consciousness.
The chapter then considers the evolution and wider distribution of consciousness (beyond humans) through a brief analysis of the many forms of discontinuity theory versus continuity theory and argues that to avoid the “hard problem” of consciousness one may need to treat its existence as fundamental, and, as co-evolving with the evolution of its associated material forms. This, in turn, takes one to a central issue: What does consciousness actually do? The analysis argues that its central function is to real-ize existence (to know it in a way that makes it subjectively real). With these foundations in place we then come to the heart of the essay—the ways in which reflexive monism provides a very different view of the nature of the universe to those offered either by dualism or materialist reductionism. As summarised in the last paragraph of this section, “In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”
The essay then considers the precise ways in which this reflexive monist understanding of “consciousness” and “mind” relates to later developments in Vedic philosophy and suggests a way of bridging contemporary Western and classical Vedic ways of understanding consciousness and mind. Finally, the chapter considers what can be said of mystical experience and the ground of being, following the principle that this ground must have the power to both manifest the universe in the form that science shows it to be and our ability to experience the universe in the way that we do. In this, RM is shown to be a dual-aspect monist form of cosmopsychism—a recent area of development within philosophy of mind. The essay compares and contrasts this with idealist versions of cosmopsychism and argues that RM allows for an integrated understanding of realism versus idealism, dualism versus monism, how ordinary experience relates to mystical experience, and how consciousness relates to mind. RM also provides an ‘open’ conceptual system that can, in principle, incorporate a range of parapsychological effects.
Added notes for 2013 online version: Nearly 20 years after its original publication this commentary on Jeffrey Gray’s thoughtful BBS target article still has contemporary relevance as, within an exclusively third-person evolutionary paradigm the evolution and function of first-person consciousness continues to present difficulties. Those interested in these issues may also want to look at my more recent online papers that address this in more detail, particularly The evolution of consciousness (2012) and Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness? (2011)
Additional Note for 2012 upload on Academia.edu: This reply responds to thoughtful commentaries on the target article by John Kihlstrom, Todd Feinberg, Steve Torrance, Robert van Gulick, Jeffrey Gray and K. Ramakrisna Rao. One commentary by Ron Chrisley and Aaron Sloman seriously misrepresented my views and then proceeded to criticize their own misrepresentation in ways that I make clear in my response. Ten years after its initial publication, as far as I ca tell, the analysis of consciousness-brain causal interactions presented in "How could conscious experience affect brains?" still conforms closely to both the findings of science and to everyday experience.
According to RM there never was a separation between what we normally think of as the “physical world” and what we think of as our “conscious experience”. In terms of its phenomenology, the phenomenal physical world is part-of conscious experience not apart-from it. This phenomenal world can be thought of as a biologically useful representation of what the world is like, although it is not the world as-described-by modern physics, and it is not the thing itself—supporting a form of indirect (critical) realism. The analysis then outlines how 3D phenomenal worlds are constructed by the mind/brain, focusing specifically on perceptual projection, and then demonstrates how normal, first-person conscious experiences (e.g. of phenomenal worlds) and their associated, third-person viewable neural correlates can be understood as dual manifestations of an underlying psychophysical mind, which can, in turn, be understood as a psychophysical form of information processing. This dual-aspect monism combines ontological monism with a form of epistemological dualism in which first- and third-person perspectives on the nature of mind are complementary and mutually irreducible—a principle that turns out to have wide-ranging applications for the study and understanding of consciousness.
The chapter then considers the evolution and wider distribution of consciousness (beyond humans) through a brief analysis of the many forms of discontinuity theory versus continuity theory and argues that to avoid the “hard problem” of consciousness one may need to treat its existence as fundamental, and, as co-evolving with the evolution of its associated material forms. This, in turn, takes one to a central issue: What does consciousness actually do? The analysis argues that its central function is to real-ize existence (to know it in a way that makes it subjectively real). With these foundations in place we then come to the heart of the essay—the ways in which reflexive monism provides a very different view of the nature of the universe to those offered either by dualism or materialist reductionism. As summarised in the last paragraph of this section, “In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”
The essay then considers the precise ways in which this reflexive monist understanding of “consciousness” and “mind” relates to later developments in Vedic philosophy and suggests a way of bridging contemporary Western and classical Vedic ways of understanding consciousness and mind. Finally, the chapter considers what can be said of mystical experience and the ground of being, following the principle that this ground must have the power to both manifest the universe in the form that science shows it to be and our ability to experience the universe in the way that we do. In this, RM is shown to be a dual-aspect monist form of cosmopsychism—a recent area of development within philosophy of mind. The essay compares and contrasts this with idealist versions of cosmopsychism and argues that RM allows for an integrated understanding of realism versus idealism, dualism versus monism, how ordinary experience relates to mystical experience, and how consciousness relates to mind. RM also provides an ‘open’ conceptual system that can, in principle, incorporate a range of parapsychological effects.
Added notes for 2013 online version: Nearly 20 years after its original publication this commentary on Jeffrey Gray’s thoughtful BBS target article still has contemporary relevance as, within an exclusively third-person evolutionary paradigm the evolution and function of first-person consciousness continues to present difficulties. Those interested in these issues may also want to look at my more recent online papers that address this in more detail, particularly The evolution of consciousness (2012) and Can evolutionary theory explain the existence of consciousness? (2011)
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ_mC-SCMW8
For the full series, devised by Iwan Brioc, see https://www.youtube.com/@foursimplequestions
Rendered and edited from the streamed zoom transmission and the original source material by Russ Pariseau.
Suggested readings: the book Understanding Consciousness Edition 2 (2009-particularly Chapters 12 and 14); online papers: How to arrive at an Eastern Place from a Western direction (2013); Reflexive Monism: Psychophysical relations among mind, matter and consciousness (2012); Reflexive Monism (2008)
Discrimination training scores with transposition supplementing conventional amplification (T) were found to be significantly higher than training scores using amplification without transposition (NT), although this effect depended on whether hearing loss in the higher speech frequencies was mild or moderate (<70dB) vs. severe or profound (>70dB). Of the 18 children with severe or profound HF losses, 17 performed better under T (up to a maximum of 40.5%) whereas 6 of the 7 children with mild or moderate HF losses deteriorated under T (up to a maximum of 7.6%). Transposition also significantly improved discrimination on post-training discrimination tests using words (up to a maximum of 71.2%) although no effects were observed in similar tests using nonsense syllables.
Ability to produce HF consonants during training was found to be strongly dependent on speech production skills acquired prior to the study rather than on training in the course of the study, with secondary school children performing significantly better than primary school children. Nevertheless, those primary school children without well-developed HF consonant production skills, and with a severe or profound HF loss, performed significantly better under T, with improvements ranging from 13.1% to 67.7%. In post-training production tests, the improvements when subjects were trained and tested under T after having been trained and tested under NT were significantly greater (19.7%) than when they were tested under NT after having been tested under T (5.1%).
Subjective evaluation of how easy it was to discriminate HF consonants under T and NT significantly favoured the T condition, with the number of T choices exceeding the number of NT choices by 80%. This preference for T was even more marked for environmental sounds, with T choices exceeding NT choices by 363%. Secondary school children had significantly greater preferences for T than the primary school children and this extended also to their preference for transposition on a permanent basis, that is 6 of the 12 primary school children and 11 of the 12 secondary school children favoured the inclusion of transposition if it were available in a post-aural aid.
Language and Speech, 18(2), 180-194
Note added to 2017 upload: The FRED aid was the first to use a spectrum preserving form of what is at the time of this upload termed "linear frequency transposition".
In Phase 2 the detailed effects of transposition on the identification of transposed consonants were examined and a procedure for diagnosing subjects likely to benefit from FRED transposition in the field was devised. Subjects diagnosed as potential "users" had immediate improvements in transposed consonant identification ranging from 10.9 percent to 29.7 percent (when transposition was added to conventional amplification). These subjects were all found to have residual hearing at least up to 1 KHz and little or no residual hearing above 4 KHz.
Phase 3 consisted of a field trial of body-worn FRED aids (issued to subjects diagnosed as potential "users" in Phase 2). This involved both objective testing and subjective evaluation. In the objective tests it was demonstrated that training with transposition added to conventional amplification led to an improved ability to identify transposed consonants for the subject group, but that training with conventional amplification only did not do so. Ability of the group to imitate transposed consonants improved with training under both conditions, but the scores with transposition were significantly higher (although considerable individual differences were observed). Subjective evaluation took place firstly under blind and then under informed0 conditions. After extended evaluation one of the six subjects reverted to not wearing a hearing aid. The other five subjects retained their FRED aids and after a period of ten months continue to use these aids in preference to conventional post-aural aids. Subjects report benefit to the perception of both speech and environmental sounds, although the pattern of benefit varies somewhat from subject to subject. The use of the aid in the field over an extended period of time, in spite of its inconvenience, provides strong evidence for the utility of FRED transposition for the subject group in question.
The Companion to Volume 3 introduces major phases and findings in the search for the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) starting with the time it takes for these to form and the wider research program that might lead to their discovery. This includes the search for mechanisms responsible for “neural binding”—how widely dispersed neural activities support integrated conscious experiences, and the search for neural markers of consciousness that can serve to distinguish conscious from preconscious and unconscious activities in the brain. We then turn to global disorders of consciousness that indirectly reveal the conditions that support consciousness by establishing what abolishes it or impairs it, and conclude this section with reviews of the major challenges in the search for NCCs that still remain. This survey then continues with research on the divided brain with cerebral commissurotomy patients, which proved to be very useful in determining the respective functions of the left and right halves of the brain. It also raised philosophical questions. Could consciousness itself be divided by this operation? And, if so, would such patients have a distinct left-brain and right-brain consciousness? Philosophical issues also combine with methodological and experimental developments in the following sections on the reintroduction of first-person methods and how to combine these with complementary, third-person methods in neurophenomenology and experiential neuroscience—two well-developed research programs for both investigating consciousness and understanding its functions. This Companion (and associated Volume) then concludes with a survey of research on free will, covering both the major findings arising from neuropsychological research and a way to understand these that is consistent with a natural understanding of volition, ethics, and legal responsibility. As with the other Companions to these Volumes there are many links to background resources (marked in pink) and to the selected readings themselves (marked in blue).
Along with updates to existing scientific readings reflecting the latest research data, this edition features 18 entirely new theoretical, empirical and methodological chapters covering such areas as integrated information theory, the resurgence in panpsychism, the renewed interest in more sophisticated first-person methodologies for the investigation of conscious phenomenology, and many others. Featuring contributions by leading experts in the study of consciousness, from across a variety of academic disciplines, the 54-chapter collection reasserts its role as the most thorough, authoritative, and up-to-date survey of the subject available today. Illuminating and thought-provoking, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for those wishing to gain insights into the latest contemporary thinking on consciousness.
In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions.
In this volume Max Velmans reflects on his long-spanning and varied career, considers the highs and lows in a brand new introduction and offers reactions to those who have responded to his published work over the years. This book offers a unique and compelling collection of the best publications in consciousness studies from one of the few psychologists to treat the topic systematically and seriously. Velmans’ approach is multi-faceted and represents a convergence of numerous fields of study – culminating in fascinating insights that are of interest to philosopher, psychologist and neuroscientist alike.
With continuing contemporary relevance, and significant historical impact, this collection of works is an essential resource for all those engaged or interested in the field of consciousness studies and the philosophy of the mind.
Further details available at
https://www.routledge.com/Towards-a-Deeper-Understanding-of-Consciousness-Selected-works-of-Max/Velmans/p/book/9781138699441
Building on the widely praised first edition of the book, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last ten years.
The book is divided into three parts; Part I surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part II reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part III deals with fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers.
Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.
Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years.
The book is divided into three parts; Part one surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part two reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part three deals with some of the fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into to the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers.
Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such, will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.
The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness is the most thorough and comprehensive survey of contemporary scientific research and philosophical thought on consciousness currently available. Its 55 newly commissioned, peer-reviewed chapters combine state-of-the-art surveys with cutting edge research. Taken as a whole, these essays by leading lights in the philosophy and science of consciousness create an engaging dialog and unparalled source of information regarding this most fascinating and mysterious subject.
How can one investigate phenomenal consciousness? As in other areas of science, the investigation of consciousness aims for a more precise knowledge of phenomena, and the discovery of general truths about their nature. This requires the development of appropriate first-person, second-person and third-person methods. This book introduces some of the creative ways in which these methods can be applied to different purposes, e.g. to understanding the relation of consciousness to brain, to examining or changing consciousness as such, and to understanding the consciousness is influenced by social, clinical and therapeutic contexts. To clarify the strengths and weaknesses of different methods and to demonstrate the interplay of methodology and epistemology, the book also suggests a number of "maps" of the consciousness studies terrain that place different approaches to the study of consciousness into a broader, interdisciplinary context.
Abstract: To understand the ontology of consciousness one has to start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. However, substance dualism and materialist reductionism adopt shared theoretical presuppositions about the phenomenology of consciousness that do not correspond to that phenomenology. Consequently, the age-old dualist vs. reductionist dispute about the ontology of consciousness starts in the wrong place and can never be resolved. Conversely, an accurate description of conscious phenomenology leads to a very different, reflexive understanding of how consciousness relates to the mind and the physical world, with consequences for how first- and third-person perspectives relate to each other in the study of mental processes, and how to understand the causal interaction of consciousness and brain. A full analysis of the consequences also leads to reflexive monism, a more inclusive paradigm for the study of consciousness that is as different from classical dualism and materialist reductionism as they are from each other. In this talk, the basic steps required to arrive at this paradigm and some of its major consequences are described. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_qLtQzkkkk
Abstract: To understand the ontology of consciousness one has to start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. However, substance dualism and materialist reductionism adopt shared theoretical presuppositions about the phenomenology of consciousness that do not correspond to that phenomenology. Consequently, the age-old dualist vs. reductionist dispute about the ontology of consciousness starts in the wrong place and can never be resolved. Conversely, an accurate description of conscious phenomenology leads to a very different, reflexive understanding of how consciousness relates to the mind and the physical world, with consequences for how first- and third-person perspectives relate to each other in the study of mental processes, and how to understand the causal interaction of consciousness and brain. A full analysis of the consequences also leads to reflexive monism, a more inclusive paradigm for the study of consciousness that is as different from classical dualism and materialist reductionism as they are from each other. In this talk, the basic steps required to arrive at this paradigm and some of its major consequences are described.
Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_qLtQzkkkk