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| Svetlana before the mirror Painting by Karl Briuliov |
As I have said in other posts in this blog, the question of self-consciousness is more philosophical than scientific. In this regard, two great philosophical theories have coexisted since time immemorial:
·
Monism:
Everything we can perceive, including consciousness, can be explained in terms
of a single component: matter, in the broadest sense of the term,
which also includes energy. In turn, monism can be classified
into two different theories:
o
Reductionist Monism: It asserts
that the entire functioning of the universe has a bottom-up explanation. In other words, if we knew enough about elementary particles and their
properties, we could explain everything, including self-consciousness.
o Emergentist Monism: It asserts that the lower level does not explain everything that happens at the higher level, since there are properties (including self-awareness) that only have a top-down explanation. That is to say, complex systems can have a behavior unpredictable in the bottom-up direction.
·
Dualism: To
explain everything we can perceive, we should resort to two different
components: matter and spirit. The spirit would explain the
intentionality of living beings, especially of man, and therefore
self-consciousness. In turn, dualism can be classified into two different
theories:
o
Neurophysiological dualism: Spirit
and matter are inseparable. They are two complementary and
unique states of the same organism.
o
Cartesian dualism: Spirit
and matter can be separated. When a human being dies, his
spirit lives on. On the other hand, matter (the body) when separated from the
spirit disintegrates.
In parallel with these two theories, there
are two other theories, basically related to the existence of God:
·
Materialism: Only
matter exists. Since God is not a material being, God would not exist. Note
that every materialist must be a monist, but not conversely, for a monist might
not be a materialist.
·
God exists and created the
universe: Therefore, besides the universe there is something (God) that
is not matter. God’s existence is compatible with monism and with dualism. See
the end of this post.
From a purely scientific point of view,
two different (and incompatible) theories currently coexist to explain
consciousness:
- GWT:
Acronym for Global Workspace Theory, conceived by Bernard Baars,
Stanislas Dehaene and Jean-Pierre Changeaux. It asserts that we have a shared
memory (a kind of data blackboard) whose information is transmitted to all
parts of the brain through a specific neural network located in the frontal and
parietal lobes. Consciousness would be the automatic result of the sharing of that
information, and we would only be aware of the information written on the blackboard.
This theory is based on a reductionist monist philosophy. If it were true, making
machines conscious would not be difficult. It would be enough to implement the blackboard
and the corresponding neural network.
Giulio Tononi IIT: Acronym for Integrated Information Theory. Conceived by Giulio Tononi and his collaborators, among whom Christof Koch stands out. It asserts that consciousness is the result of the integration and structuring of a complex and interconnected global mechanism that gives it intrinsic causal power (intentionality). This theory predicts that a sophisticated simulation of the human brain could not be conscious, just as a computer simulation of a black hole does not warp the space around the computer on which the simulation is running. Consciousness cannot be computerized, for it is part of the structure of the system. This does not preclude the possibility that machines could become conscious, although it sends it to the far future, because such machines should be radically different from those we now have. This theory is based on an emergentist monist philosophy, although it would not be difficult to make it compatible with the two forms of dualist philosophy.
As for the existence of God, it is
independent of monism and of dualism, being compatible with both philosophies.
Indeed, God could have created a world of automata, like the one preached by
reductionist monism. However, Christianity is incompatible with this
philosophy, for they lead to totally contradictory anthropologies.
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