ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that the production or appearance of conscious experience is a function of brain processes. One need only think of the loss of awareness during an anoxia that initially depresses the forebrain selectively, as seen in a reduction of spontaneous electrophysiological (‘brain wave’) activity. This loss contrasts with the retention of conscious awareness when the spinal cord has been either anaesthetized or transected at a high cervical level (although, of course, somatic sensibility and motor control below the neck are lost). The questions to be addressed here are as follows: How do cerebral neurons produce conscious experience? Are there unique neuronal activities or loci that distinguish between conscious and unconscious mental events? Which brain structures are specifically necessary for conscious experience? Within the context of a brain with normally functioning necessary structures, is production of a conscious experience finally achieved by some localized processing, or by a distributed processing in a more global fashion? I also ask whether the conscious mental phenomena that are produced by cerebral neurons can in turn influence or control some activities of those neurons. Although many if not most contemporary neuroscientists and philosophers would immediately answer no to the last question, their judgement is based on the often unstated hypothesis that the causal relationship is one-way, neural to mental only, and that feelings of free will are illusions. But this is a hypothesis that has yet to be tested and confirmed, and so the question should remain open to an experimental scientist. Our ability to carry out acts of our own will would seem to provide a kind of prima facie evidence that such a causal relationship may exist. For example, one can decide at will to flick a finger, or not to flick it, at any time one wishes to do so.
