Consciousness, Energy, and Information

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CONSCIOUSNESS
In your opinion, is Rolls's model a trivial or substantive view of consciousness? The subject of consciousness raises a number of questions and answers if one understands the greater issue at hand. Mandik's main view on the neurophilosophy of consciousness chiefly discusses, "what it is that we are conscious of. When one has a conscious state...one is conscious of something, as when I am conscious of a buzzing insect. Things may vary with respect to whether I am conscious of them, as when I am only intermittently conscious of the conversation at a nearby table in a restaurant. What does it mean to be conscious of something? Conscious states have certain properties—their phenomenal character—properties in virtue of which there is "something it is like" to be in that state. When I have a conscious perception of a cup of coffee there is, presumably, something it is like for me to have that perception and, for all I know, what it is like for you to have a conscious perception of a cup of coffee is quite different. What makes a conscious state have "something it is like" to be in that state? Neurophilosophical theories of consciousness bring neuroscience to bear on answering these three questions of consciousness."

http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/papers/neurophilconsc.html

In contrast, Edmond T. Roll's computational neuroscience approach to consciousness has self-similar ideas at a root level. In other words, Mandik's focus is philosophical in relation to the brain, and Roll "considers whether computational processing involved in perceptual and attentional computations is linked to consciousness." Both scholars offer substantive data that's, in point of fact, trivial. Pete Mandik is at William Paterson University in New Jersey, USA; while Roll is at the UK's University of Oxford. Both schools teach very little to nothing about consciousness in their degree programs. Most students in schools around the world are not given information about ...