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Intrinsic Contextuality as the Crux of Consciousness

Aerts, Diederik and Broekaert, Jan and Gabora, Liane (2000) Intrinsic Contextuality as the Crux of Consciousness. [Conference Paper] (In Press)

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Abstract

A stream of conscious experience is extremely contextual; it is impacted by sensory stimuli, drives and emotions, and the web of associations that link, directly or indirectly, the subject of experience to other elements of the individual's worldview. The contextuality of one's conscious experience both enhances and constrains the contextuality of one's behavior. Since we cannot know first-hand the conscious experience of another, it is by way of behavioral contextuality that we make judgements about whether or not, and to what extent, a system is conscious. Thus we believe that a deep understanding of contextuality is vital to the study of consciousness. Methods have been developed for handling contextuality in the microworld of quantum particles. Our goal has been to investigate the extent to which these methods can be used to analyze contextuality in conscious experience.

Item Type:Conference Paper
Keywords:contextuality, consciousness, hierarchy, concepts, cognition, quantum, collapse, superposition, stimuli, drive, emotion, conceptual network, emergence, criticality, constraint, microworld, closure, worldview, association, relationship, association, self organization, perturbation, edge of chaos, animal, opinion, probability, liar paradox, Hilbert space, illusion
Subjects:Philosophy > Philosophy of Mind
ID Code:974
Deposited By:Gabora, Dr. Liane
Deposited On:21 Sep 2000
Last Modified:12 Sep 2007 17:35

References in Article

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