Consciousness—a system-theoretical approach

The aim of this work is not to compete with the paper by Boly et al. (2013), but rather to look at the issue of consciousness from a different, system-theoretical perspective. According to advice by Sokal and Bricmont that “it’s a good idea to know, what one is talking about” (Sokal and Bricmont, 1999, p. 185), let us assume that consciousness is a dynamically changing part of quasi-static whole knowledge of an individual, activated by perception and directed by attention, aimed at dealing with the task just being solved. Accordingly, while taking as a criterion the scope of field of information, the whole body of an individual’s knowledge may be regarded as a potential consciousness. It may be divided into two parts: stimulated by attention active consciousness and remaining beyond its limits, “sleeping” inactive consciousness. The “fuzzy” region between them makes a space for half-active consciousness, commonly termed “sub-consciousness.” In this region the access to needed information is not immediate, as in active consciousness, but easier than that in the field of inactive consciousness. The other dimension of division— independent of the former—results from the fact that knowledge is a mental representation of reality which may be described with various codes. The organic “device” dealing with this issue is the brain, so the knowledge of its structure and evolutionary history may significantly facilitate identification of such codes. Here instructive may be the commonly known division into extrapyramidal and pyramidal systems. The former may be— roughly—associated with sensory experiences (stimuli), and thus it may underlie what may be termed “real consciousness.” The latter deals with the abstract representations of reality, stored and processed in one’s own memory, so it may be termed “virtual consciousness.” The presented division may be roughly associated with Cartesian division into sensory-mental res extensa and purely mental res cogitans (Schmaltz, 2008, p. 42), or Pavlov’s first and second system of signals (Pavlov, 1973, p. 443). A more detailed division may be traced in the papers by Carpenter (1852), Hughlings Jackson (1884). The latter inspired N.A. Bernstein, who authored probably the most advanced systemic division of information processing in humans, based on evolutionary, and neurophysiological data (Bernstein, 1947). Unfortunately, though Bernstein spoke eight languages, he wrote mainly in Russian, hence even nowadays his works are not very popular in contemporary science, where English prevails. Bernstein followed the evolutionary development of sense organs, nervous systems, information processing abilities, and motor abilities of living beings. He discerned five levels of movements’ construction, tightly joinedwith specific structures in the central nervous system (CNS), which subsequently appeared in living organisms in the course of evolution: