What do Evolutionary Explantions about Consciousness Provide?

• Main Authors: Shun-Pin Hsu, 許舜斌
• Other Authors: Allen Y. Houng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/49012546723572279151

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 神經科學研究所 === 96 === The subjective aspect of phenomenal consciousness poses difficult metaphysical and epistemic problems for the study of consciousness. As phenomenal consciousness is a biological property, and evolutionary explanations of biological properties play various roles in the explanation of the causal relation, function and origins of biological properties, evolutionary explanations have been incorporated in many discussions about the nature of phenomenal consciousness. Discussions about whether consciousness is epiphenomenal or not, presence of causal power has been shown to be implied by evidence of adaptation. If a biological property lacks causal power, then it couldn’t have been selected in the course of history. That is, evidence of phenomenal consciousness as an adaptive biological property leads to evidence of causal power. Functions of consciousness have also involved its adaptive value as well as its present mechanical role in organisms. As for the necessity of evolutionary explanations in theories about the nature of phenomenal consciousness, teleological representationists such as Fred Dretske, have argued that history plays an constitutive role in natural systematic representations such as phenomenal consciousness. For these theories, without evolutionary explanations about consciousness, we cannot completely explain it at all. However, in this thesis, I will argue that explanations that aim to reveal the nature of consciousness do not necessarily involve evolutionary explanations, and that is because of the relation between mechanical explanations and evolutionary explanations.