Dynamics of consciousness: Phenomenology, neuroscience, and dynamical systems theory

Husserlian phenomenology and connectionist neuroscience make a surprisingly tight fit. In both fields one finds talk of possible states: on the one hand, sets of possible conscious-states (what Husserl called “horizons”), on the other hand, sets of possible brain-states (which connectionists represent by “activation spaces”). The two approaches are integrated using dynamical systems theory, which provides mathematical and geometrical tools for studying the motion of complex systems.;Husserl describes the world of everyday life (the “lifeworld” or “total horizon”) as a set of possible conscious experiences. He uses this conception of the world to apply quasi-mathematical techniques to phenomenological problems (Husserl began his career as a mathematician studying manifolds and their possible variations).;I argue that the total horizon in Husserl's sense can be mathematically represented by a mapping from possible conscious states to points in activation space. This numerical representation can be used, among other things, to visualize phenomenological structures (e.g. streams of consciousness are represented by sequences of points, sedimentation of background knowledge is represented by a slowly-shifting “attractor surface” within activation space, etc.).;Since supervenience is the only mind-brain relation that I draw on, the whole project is metaphysically neutral. As Jaegwon Kim (1988) puts it: “…mind-body supervenience states the mind-body problem—it is not a solution to it.” I use this feature of supervenience to argue that a set of mind-body correlations is compatible with physicalist, dualist, and even idealist interpretations (domains of each type can be constructed which make the correlations true).;While developing these ideas I also articulate relevant history, address conceptual difficulties, and introduce methodological tools. I show that attempts to correlate mental structures with their physical substrate have a longer and more significant history than is generally realized. I argue that Husserlian phenomenology can be divorced from its foundationalist underpinnings and reconstrued as a fallible and formalizable theory of consciousness. I propose a method for harmonizing phenomenology and neuroscience at their metaphorical levels, using what I call “bridge metaphors” (e.g. “field,” “stream,” “riverbed,” and “attractor”).