ABSTRACT
Human nervous systems display an impressive roster of complex capacities, including the following: perceiving, learning and remembering, planning, deciding, performing actions, as well as the capacities to be awake, fall asleep, dream, pay attention, and be aware. Although neuroscience has advanced spectacularly in the century, we still do not understand in satisfying detail how any capacity in the list emerges from networks of neurons. Categories such as "memory," "attention," and "reasoning" are likewise undergoing revision, as experimental psychology and neuroscience proceed. A number of philosophers have expressed reservations concerning the reductionist research goal of discovering the neurobiological mechanisms for psychological capacities, including the capacity to be conscious. John Searle's strategy is to say that although the brain causes conscious states, any identification of conscious states with brain activities is unsound. By acquiring a language and then learning to speak silently to oneself, one allegedly creates a "consciousness virtual machine" in the brain.
