HAS CONSCIOUSNESS BECOME A SOLUBLE PROBLEM?
Commentary on Bridgeman on Consciousness

Abstract

Bridgeman (1992) advocates "a new psychology of plans," however, the time is not yet ripe for a frontal attack on the problem of consciousness, the necessary tools and insights are not yet available and the problem is not yet tractable. Bridgeman mentions several regions of the brain where he proposes that plans are synthesized, modified and executed, but how might one recognize in those areas the plan-executing events that constitute consciousness, and distinguish them from other unconscious forms of information processing? With what alternative possibilities should the hypothesized mechanism be confronted, in order to design critical experiments? If no answers are forthcoming this new definition leaves consciousness as a problem that is, at present, just as intractable as before. And so psychologists and neurophysiologists will, I think, continue for some time yet to chip away at the edges of the consciousness problem.

Keywords

References

• Bridgman, B. (1992). On the evolution of consciousness and language. PSYCOLOQUY 3(15) consciousness.1
• Medawar, P. B. (1967). The Art of the Soluble. Methuen: London