Where Does Consciousness Come From?
I always felt that studying psychology was a natural progression from my old obsession with religious theology. It seemed to me that religion, at the individual level, reduced to spirituality — that a worldview based on doctrine and theology was built upon something deeper and more central to the human experience. From there it seemed to me that spirituality could be reduced to psychology in that spirituality is a way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
This was definitely my frame of reference when I began my undergraduate studies in 2019, still as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, secretly learning the “wisdom of the world that is foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19, NWT) as I tried to figure out how to navigate my life after releasing belief in my community’s shared religious philosophy.
Soon, however, the question arose: Where does psychology come from? It’s a bit of an odd question. But I think it is an understandable one for the religious (or ex-religious) thinker who is accustomed to connecting psychic content with an outside source, like a higher power. But it is flawed to begin with, based on assumptions influenced by a society that still holds on to some fundamental religious notions.
For example, it’s hard not to concede that the religious concept of the soul (the god-given, ghost-like quality that inhabits the body) did not lead to concepts such as “personality” and “self” that have been enshrined again, absent religion, in the scientific domain. After all, why must our hopes, dreams, passions, and spiritual experiences have any grander meaning beyond what they objectively are, the side effects of electrical stimulation pulsing through the lump of fat in our skulls?
The answer to the question “Where does psychology come from?” is the brain. Psychology reduces to neuroscience. Whatever theoretical assumptions that form the basis of psychology reduce to cognitive and affective experiences resulting from the workings of the brain and central nervous system.
Dabbling in Neurophilosophy
In recent decades technology has allowed us to study the brain in new ways leading to the popularity of neuroscience. Philosophers, too, have realized that their intellectual inquiry leads inevitably to the brain. Classic questions upon which philosophers have deliberated for hundreds of years, like the nature of consciousness, the self, ethics, morals, truth, and the like ought to be reducible to activity in the brain. The first to label this kind of cross-disciplinary inquiry was the Canadian philosopher Patricia Churchland who coined the term Neurophilosophy in her eponymous book, Neurophilosophy-Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. (More on Churchland’s work in a later article.)
This article will serve as an introduction to neurophilosophy based on the book Neurophilosophy and the Healthy Mind by Georg Northoff. I found Northoff’s book easily digestible as an introduction to the domain. It tackles some foundational concepts of philosophy from the perspective of neuroscience at the pop science reading level with ample repetition of the main points, giving the reader an overview of a handful of basic neurophilosophical ideas.
Interestingly, as indicated by the book’s subtitle Learning from the Unwell Brain, Northoff draws his philosophical conclusions from clinical patients. He discusses coma, vegetative states, schizophrenia, and depression — these having been studied at length in the search for medical treatments. So when discussing the nature of consciousness, the self, psychological disorder, the nature of time, and the passions (or emotions), he analyses research from brains that aren’t functioning optimally and, based on the cognition that is lost or faulty in the clinical patient, makes assertions about the neurological mechanisms that contribute to philosophical content in healthy brains.
A Neurophilosophy of Consciousness
Let’s begin with the nature of consciousness. I won’t introduce a lengthy discussion of the history of current theories regarding the nature of consciousness. Suffice it to say that it is a well-debated topic, with much discussion surrounding what is called the “hard problem of consciousness” which basically asks why some neurological mechanisms also come with a sense of experience, a rather ambiguous sensation of what it is like to be aware of cognitive processes.
Northoff touches on this problem, but most interestingly he discusses how the resting state and intrinsic function of the brain could be connected to our experience of consciousness. He does this by analyzing the experience of patients in vegetative states. When an individual is in a vegetative state, their brain is still functioning at some level but they are said to be unconscious. Logically then, by analyzing the difference between the activity of the unconscious brain in someone in a vegetative state and the activity of a normal brain, we should be able to determine which brain functions are absent in the unconcsious mind, thereby isolating those associated with consciousness.
Most of us are familiar with the unconscious mind. We understand that unconscious mental processing can impact our actions and decision-making. Northoff talks about how traumatic early experiences can be encoded in our minds so that we, for example, unconsciously avoid putting ourselves in certain situations. But we are largely unaware of these processes because they don’t contain the subjecting processing of the content that we associate with consciousness. They happen below the level of our awareness, not in consciousness. Northoff clarifies:
“The same content — whether a particular event, person, or object — can be present in both conscious mode with subjective experience, and in an unconscious mode. The neuronal difference between the conscious and the unconscious mode must then be related to consciousness” (p.42)
In unconscious patients, intrinsic, resting-state function does not completely cease. (That’s why doctors sometimes tell loved ones to talk to comatose patients. Even though the patient isn’t consciously responsive, brain imaging shows that there is some brain response to such stimuli.) So then, there is something about the interaction between the intrinsic function or resting state of the brain and external stimuli that cause the emergence of consciousness.
This approach challenges what was previously accepted about how consciousness emerges. The extrinsic-cognitive approach basically states that the brain is a blank slate until stimuli, in the form of sensory stimulation, activate it. External stimuli enter the brain which is activated and then somehow (a part of the unsolved hard problem of consciousness) leads to a conscious awareness of the stimuli. Northoff thinks this theory is incomplete because it fails to take into account the intrinsic-resting state function of the unconscious brain. According to Northoff (and others before him like psychologist Karl Lashley) the intrinsic-resting state function of the brain provides an organizational template from which consciousness arises. This organizational network includes neuronal networks like the default mode network in the midline regions of the brain, the executive control networks at the outer edges of the brain, and the salience network that assigns salience to external stimuli which is located in the sensory-motor regions of the brain. These areas, in that they create the organizational template of the intrinsic state, form a neuronal predisposition to consciousness. Consciousness occurs when external stimuli meet the level (salience), form, and content required to stimulate the neuronal predispositions of the resting state to create consciousness.
To put it simply, Northoff says, “The neural predispositions will account for the necessary conditions of possible consciousness, and the neural correlates will reveal the necessary and sufficient conditions of actual consciousness”
Phew. Why is this significant for research into the hard problem of consiousness. Northoff puts it this way:
“The methodological starting point of philosophy is not only different here but reversed: Traditionally in philosophy we start with the mind and continue from there to the brain, whereas now we start with the brain itself, its intrinsic activity, and extend from there to mental features such as consciousness. What is described as a metaphysical problem between two different existences and realities, mind and brain, is now converted into a transformation problem: How does intrinsic activity of the brain transform neuronal activity into mental features” (p.61)
I’m with Northoff in this perspective. Because of my history deconstructing cognitive illusions, like my religious worldview and mystical thinking, etc. I am completely comfortable de-emphasizing also the experience of consciousness. Why is it that we highly value consciousness? Why does it seem such a perplexing problem? The subjective experience of experience might be precious to us because it makes us feel like people and alive. But from a neuroscientific perspective, it is no less valuable than any other sensory data. Does not our love affair with our own consciousness not also hail from the religious, superstitious, fantastical underpinnings of our scientific inquiry?
Neurophilosophy of the Self
Northoff digs deep into how the self can be investigated neuroscientifically. He first addresses the philosophical roots of belief and non-belief in the self, acknowledging that it has become an accepted modern perspective that the self is an illusion in consciousness. However, if the self is not of some neurophilosophical significance, it ought to be processed the same as all other content in the brain. However, as Northoff reminds us, several psychological studies have shown that self-related content is more heavily weighted in relation to memory, emotion, and sensory-motor response. This is referred to as self-reference effect (SFE)
To test the impact of SFE on the brain, Northoff states: “We can compare self-and non-self-specific stimuli in the scanner and investigate the underlying brain regions that respond” (p.70).
The results of these tests show that the brain areas involved in neural processing of self-specific stimuli are “regions in the middle of the brain: specifically, the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (PACC), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), the suprangenual anterior cingulate cortex (SACC), the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and the precuneus. Since they are all located in the midline of the brain, they have been termed cortical midline structures (CMS)” (p.72).
He admits however that “How and why the specific physiological features of the CMS are transformed into mental features remain unclear” (p.73).
One very interesting finding in Northoff’s research is that and I quote, “Various investigators have demonstrated neural overlap between self-related processing and resting-state activity levels in that the former did not elicit changes in the latter” (p.79). So, despite the weight that SRE is given in memory and emotion, this did not increase the activity in the intrinsic-resting state areas that Northoff identifies with the neural predisposits of consciousness. Northoff explains:
“You would think that the brain encodes high-personal-relevance items in commensurately high-activity changes so that the self-specific stimuli stand out when compared to non-self-specific ones and to the rest of the brain. That is the way you experience yourself: You stand out in the environment when compared to others. You would consequently expect your brain to do the same, to make the self stand out with high-activity changes…That high-activity change, though, does not seem to be the case. Rather, the opposite holds. Your self — the basic subjectivity of your experience and consciousness — does not seem to stand out at all; rather overlaps with your brain’s ongoing resting-state activity”.
Northoff exclaims the significance of this to philosophical inquiry:
“What was long considered the pinnacle of the mind — self and subjectivity — seems now to be located at its very bottom: in the resting-state activity of the brain…Self or subjectivity is an intrinsic ingredient of the brain itself and its intrinsic activity. Brain and intrinsic activity are, by default, subjective and cannot avoid constructing some kind of self. This is a radical thesis that reverberates deeply into neuroscience and its view of the seemingly purely objective brains, as well as into philosophy and its view of subjectivity as the province of higher mental features” (p.81).
Neurophilosophy of Mental Disorder
Northoff spends a few chapters on depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia in this volume. Again, the premise is that we can learn more about how the brain works and draw philosophical conclusions by analyzing what goes wrong in disordered states.
His assumptions align with the commonly accepted biopsychosocial approach to mental unwellness — that mental disorder occurs when a combination of factors: biological (genetic or physiological), psychological (how an individual thinks), and social (the behavior and thinking of the other people in an individual’s environment) interact and lead to mental distress.
Northoff also talks about a triangulation, albeit different from the above, of content in consciousness: self, body, and environment. These three occur in reciprocal balance in a mentally well patient but not so in an individual with mental disorder. You could imagine an equilateral triangle representing wellness and contrast it with an irregular triangle representing a cognitive imbalance in depression, anxiety, and the like.
As we already discussed, Northoff finds the self in the medial regions of the brain. Other studies suggest that environmental (non-self) content of the brain occurs in the lateral regions of the brain. When imaging studies are made of depressed individuals, there is hyperactivity in the midline region. This tracks with what we know about some cognitive correlates of depression as they relate to self-focus rather than environmental (other focus). For example rumination — repeating thoughts over and over about some self-related problem or concern. Even in the resting state, the brain of an individual who is depressed shows more activity in the midline regions. Northoff admits, however, that “more findings are necessary to support the assumption that the neuronal resting-state balance corresponds to the phenomenal balance between self and environment in liver experience. In short, we need to investigate the relationship between neuronal and phenomenal balances.”
So we can’t say that the philosophical stance that mental distress results from an imbalance in self-focus and environmental focus is proven with the images of midline and lateral regions of the brain lighting up on the fMRI.
Schizophrenia
When it comes to schizophrenia, a situation that continues to puzzle the medical and therapeutic community because it seems to blur the lines between biological disease and cognitive disorder, Northoff again speaks about the relationship between self and environment. He addresses this as an issue of social differentiation. He says this:
“The patients withdraw and disconnect or differentiate (I.e. they no longer receive signals) from their social environment-which, in turn, lets them focus on their inward mental life with no external validation. This leads to an extreme imbalance between internal and external mental contents: the internal contents predominate completely, taking over in such a way that they ‘develop a life of their own” (p. 152)
One insight that I found particularly enlightening from Northoff’s research about schizophrenia relates to the temporal abnormalities in midline brain structures of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. The abnormalities may cause some difficulties relating environmental stimuli with self-related cognitive content. Northoff puts it this way:
“Low frequency fluctuations slow extremely long cycle durations. These long cycle durations link and integrate different stimuli and events that, in healthy people, are usually processed in a segregated way. Is this the mechanism that allows the patient with schizophrenia to link events that are disconnected in the “real world”, such as the shaking of his or her head and the bending of the tree by the wind? For the patient it is his or her head shaking that causes the wind to bend the tree; for the psychiatrist, such thinning is delusional” (p. 165)
This could also occur in the relation between sensory information from the body and the self-related functions of the brain. Northoff says this is a bold claim at this point but that this line of thinking could lead the direction of future research. He calls this the “spatial-temporal approach to psychiatric disorders” (p. 169). Insights like this are exciting for the research of mental health.
More to Understand
This episode is meant to be my first foray into Neurophilosophy. But I believe it will be the direction of my future readings. Neurophilosophy, then neuropsychotherapy like neuroexistentialism, and the neurobiology of psychoanalysis. It feels like a niche. But no promises. This podcast is self-indulgent and more about my personal curiosity than anything else.
I’m going to pay back on one theme in Northoff’s book. First of all, he speaks a bit disparagingly of my current academic crush and matriarch of the domain, Patricia Churchland. More on Churchland, who coined the term Neurophilosophy, and what I’ve read of her work later.
Northoff almost mocks the early neurophilosophers refrain that “the mind is the brain”. But then goes on to replace the mind-brain problem and the resulting hard problem of consciousness with what he calls the world problem. But I’m bypassing the mind in the relation between the external world and the brain, he essentially echos the very same refrain, that the mind is the brain.
I also take issue with the word “world”. Surely, there is a difference between the impact of external social stimuli in “the world” and other sources of stimuli in “the world”. For example, as eluded to in Northoff’s metaphor, the individual who believes that his head makes the trees shake suffers no distress until the societal forces in their life are not embracive of the connection. Reverting as I must to the “delusion” of religion. Religion is no delusion in a community of fellows.
I will modestly leave my critique at that.
(This article is a repost from wallisbooks.com. If you enjoy my work and would like to support me, buy me a cup of coffee!)
References:
Northoff, G. (2016). Neuro-philosophy and the healthy mind: Learning from the unwell brain. WW Norton & Company.
Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania (2013) New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc. Brooklyn, New York. Retrieved from: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2014682#h=1:0-26:914
