The Physiological Basis of Consciousness: A Clinical Ambition and the Insufficiency of Current Philosophical Proposals

In neuropsychiatric practice some patients present pathological deformations of consciousness. An understanding of the physiological basis of consciousness is therefore a clinical as well as scientific and philosophical problem. We review four possible responses to this clinical requirement: (1) absolute dualism, (2) McGinn's model of cognitive closure, (3) a model based on the inadequacy of physics, and (4) Wilczek's metaphor of mind-brain complementarity. One possible quantification of consciousness, the integrated information theory of consciousness, is considered, and its limitations and the difficulties associated with its implementation are outlined. A less ambitious alternative based on an extension of information dynamics which offers the possibility of global time-dependent characterizations of central nervous system (CNS) information dynamics is presented. We suggest that while an integration of information dynamics and network theory may fail to solve the matter-consciousness problem, the investigation could produce technologies and understandings that are clinically useful.