Naturalizing Consciousness

After having ignored it for over a century, science is again facing the problem of consciousness. Many scholars believe that soon, with the aid of new neuroimaging methods, it will be possible to comprehend the fundamental aspects of consciousness. Consciousness, however, differs radically from the ordinary objects researched by science: not only because of the complexity of the neural infrastructures which are at its base or because of the subtle connection of these infrastructures with phenomena such as decision making, morals and artistic creativity, but above all because of that which gives life to the qualitative dimension and to the subjectivity of its states. In this sense, self-awareness, perception, intentionality, qualia, and free will are not characteristics which are separate from consciousness, but rather aspects of the same phenomenon. If it is true that consciousness is caused by specific neuronal processes and, therefore, conscious states are causally reducible to neurobiological processes, it is also true that conscious states exist at a higher level than a few bundles of neurons. Accounts in the first person are real phenomena from the real world. For this reason we cannot reduce consciousness solely to its biological bases, because such a reduction to the third person would exclude experience in the first person. It is necessary, once and for all, not only to go beyond a hierarchical idea of levels of consciousness, but also to refute the idea according to which the ’mental’ sphere is qualitative, subjective, and in the ’first person’, while the ’physical’ sphere is quantitative, objective and in the ’third person’. There are no plausible reasons for why a physical system, such as a human being or an animal, cannot have qualitative, subjective and intentional states. From a naturalistic perspective consciousness and intentionality are a part of the physical world.