Where Does Consciousness Come From?

from Provisional Aspirations with Geoffrey Wallis Hosted by Thomas W. Moore

Where does consciousness come from? This question is understandable in the religious (or post-religious) thinker who is accustomed to connecting psychic content with an outside source, like a higher power. That is to say, it’s a bit of a flawed question to begin with; one that likely comes from being immersed in a society that still holds on to some religious notions. It’s hard not to concede that the religious concept of the soul (the god-given ghost-like quality that inhabits the body) did not lead to concepts such as personality and self that have been enshrined again, even in the absence of religion, in the scientific domain. After all, why must our hopes, dreams, passions, and spiritual experiences have any grander meaning beyond what they objectively are, the side effects of electrical stimulation pulsing through the lump of fat in our skulls? This episode discusses one neurophilosopher's speculations on the hard problem of human consciousness. George Northoff's book Neuro-philosophy and the Healthy Mind discusses insights about the nature of consciousness, mental disorder, and the self that can be learned from images of the brains of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and those in vegetative states. In this episode, learn about: Neuroscientific theories about the nature of consciousness How the brain creates the experience of self A neurophilosophical approach to mental disorder References cited in this episode: Northoff, G. (2016). Neuro-philosophy and the healthy mind: Learning from the unwell brain. WW Norton & Company.