[title unknown]

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

The reducibility of consciousness to brain states was investigated using David Chalmers’ book, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, to provide the non-reductivist argument and the neurophysiology of memory, binding and pain to bolster the reductivist argument. David Chalmers’ use of Supervenience Theory was layed out in addition to two of his strongest arguments of modal logic in aid of his position: the Zombie Argument and Colorblind Mary. Next the neurophysiology of memory and studies on neural synchronization and gamma-band oscillations were presented as evidence that consciousness is dependent on physical processes. The neurobiology of pain was also shown in an effort to rescind David Chalmers’ belief that the qualitative states of consciousness cannot be reduced to physical descriptions. In the last part of the paper, Type Identity Theory was presented in order to reconcile mental causation with physicalism and an evolutionary perspective on consciousness was briefly outlined. The implications of this research are that consciousness must be understood with a new understanding: the mental and the physical being equivalent.

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