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An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness
I will argue that, in an interdisciplinary study of consciousness, epistemic structural realism (ESR) can offer a feasible philosophical background for the study of consciousness and its associated neurophysiological phenomena in neuroscience and cognitive science while also taking into account the...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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MDPI
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7826556/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33440792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e23010097 |
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author | Stanciu, Diana |
author_facet | Stanciu, Diana |
author_sort | Stanciu, Diana |
collection | PubMed |
description | I will argue that, in an interdisciplinary study of consciousness, epistemic structural realism (ESR) can offer a feasible philosophical background for the study of consciousness and its associated neurophysiological phenomena in neuroscience and cognitive science while also taking into account the mathematical structures involved in this type of research. Applying the ESR principles also to the study of the neurophysiological phenomena associated with free will (or rather conscious free choice) and with various alterations of consciousness (AOCs) generated by various pathologies such as epilepsy would add explanatory value to the matter. This interdisciplinary approach would be in tune with Quine’s well known idea that philosophy is not simple conceptual analysis but is continuous with science and actually represents an abstract branch of the empirical research. The ESR could thus resonate with scientific models of consciousness such as the global neuronal workspace model (inspired by the global workspace theory—GWT) and the integrated information theory (IIT) model. While structural realism has already been employed in physics or biology, its application as a meta-theory contextualising and relating various scientific findings on consciousness is new indeed. Out of the two variants: ontic structural realism (OSR) and epistemic structural realism (ESR), the latter can be considered more suitable for the study of consciousness and its associated neurophysiological phenomena because it removes the pressure of the still unanswered ‘What is consciousness?’ ontological question and allows us to concentrate instead on the ‘What can we know about consciousness?’ epistemological question. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7826556 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78265562021-02-24 An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness Stanciu, Diana Entropy (Basel) Article I will argue that, in an interdisciplinary study of consciousness, epistemic structural realism (ESR) can offer a feasible philosophical background for the study of consciousness and its associated neurophysiological phenomena in neuroscience and cognitive science while also taking into account the mathematical structures involved in this type of research. Applying the ESR principles also to the study of the neurophysiological phenomena associated with free will (or rather conscious free choice) and with various alterations of consciousness (AOCs) generated by various pathologies such as epilepsy would add explanatory value to the matter. This interdisciplinary approach would be in tune with Quine’s well known idea that philosophy is not simple conceptual analysis but is continuous with science and actually represents an abstract branch of the empirical research. The ESR could thus resonate with scientific models of consciousness such as the global neuronal workspace model (inspired by the global workspace theory—GWT) and the integrated information theory (IIT) model. While structural realism has already been employed in physics or biology, its application as a meta-theory contextualising and relating various scientific findings on consciousness is new indeed. Out of the two variants: ontic structural realism (OSR) and epistemic structural realism (ESR), the latter can be considered more suitable for the study of consciousness and its associated neurophysiological phenomena because it removes the pressure of the still unanswered ‘What is consciousness?’ ontological question and allows us to concentrate instead on the ‘What can we know about consciousness?’ epistemological question. MDPI 2021-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7826556/ /pubmed/33440792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e23010097 Text en © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Stanciu, Diana An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness |
title | An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness |
title_full | An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness |
title_fullStr | An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness |
title_full_unstemmed | An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness |
title_short | An ESR Framework for the Study of Consciousness |
title_sort | esr framework for the study of consciousness |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7826556/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33440792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/e23010097 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT stanciudiana anesrframeworkforthestudyofconsciousness AT stanciudiana esrframeworkforthestudyofconsciousness |