Neural activation, information, and phenomenal consciousness.
- Resource Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Velmans, Max
- Source
- Velmans, Max (1999) Neural activation, information, and phenomenal consciousness. [Journal (Paginated)]
- Subject
- Psychology: Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience: Neuropsychology
Cognitive Psychology
Neuropsychology
- Language
O'Brien & Opie defend a "vehicle" rather than a "process" theory of consciousness largely on the grounds that only conscious information is "explicit". I argue that preconscious and unconscious representations can be functionally explicit (semantically well-formed and causally active). I also suggest that their analysis of how neural activation space mirrors the information structure of phenomenal experience fits more naturally into a dual-aspect theory of information than into their reductive physicalism.