Consciousness. What is consciousness? How can we define it? Can we explain human consciousness in terms of brain’s activity? These are some of the questions that I would like to discuss here, which have also been posted by scientists in an article appeared in the NewScientist of January 2010.

Most neuroscientists, philosophers and psychologists feel the need to explain consciousness in correlation with the brain’s activity, they think that the time has arrived in which all the research conducted in neuroscience, neuropsychiatry and psychology will give its fruits, that it is not acceptable that we still cannot answer  questions concerning human consciousness.

“ These correlations are higher than should be expected, given the reliability of both fMRI and personality measures.” Said Harold Pashier in an article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009, referring to the relation between consciousness and neural activity.

Right here come my arguments, in agreement with what is said in the Newscientist . It is unarguable that the correlations found between consciousness and the brain’s activity are extremely deeply situated and strong, but then, this does not necessarily mean they are the same thing.  If we decide to relate neural activity to consciousness, we are claiming that we have demonstrated that they are exactly the same thing.

I am aware of the fact that this approach to the problem is typically philosophical, but I reckon that this is the right approach to give the matter, in order to realize what should really be the direction of investigation.

If we make the mistake which the majority of scientists are making, we would then conclude, for example, that the activity in the occipital cortex and the sensation of light are two aspects of the same thing. This is clearly a mistake, as the “existence” of two different aspects implies the prior existence of consciousness and then, this cannot be used to explain the relationship between the consciousness itself and the brain’s activity. In the article in the NewScientist mentioned before, they use a very effective example to explain this argument.

Water. H20. These two words have exactly the same meaning, but they approach the same concept from two different levels. The first reminds us of something wet, transparent and liquid, while the second tells us that we are talking about two molecules of hydrogen linked with one molecule of oxygen. The mere existence of these different levels of experience of the same thing, implies the idea of consciousness.

Another aspect that I would like to briefly discuss concerns the insuperable problem of the sense of past and future. The concept of different tenses is another proof that the investigation does not have to go to the direction of correlating consciousness with mere neural activity. When we remember an event which happened in the past, we are reaching out something to the present, from the past, with our consciousness. The synapses from their side, being a physical entity, have only their present state, so they are unable to identify something like the past.

These argumentations do not help us to understand where the human consciousness comes from, but at least I think that they help us to realize that probably the direction of the present investigation is not the most appropriate. Naturally, any kind of discussion and argumentation is plausible and welcome in order to make our level of “consciousness about consciousness” higher.