Coglunch - 6 June, 2002

Neural plasticity and consciousness: an enactive approach
Alva Noe
Philosophy, UC Santa Cruz Why does neural activity in a given region of cortex get experienced one way rather than another, as red, say, rather than green, or as visual, say, rather than auditory? To answer this question I draw on an enactive or sensorimotor approach to perception and perceptual consciousness. I introduce a distinction between cortical dominance and cortical deference, and apply it to various examples of neural plasticity in which input is rerouted intermodally or intramodally to nonstandard cortical targets. In some cases, but not others, cortical activity 'defers' to the nonstandard sources of input. Why? A solution is proposed drawing on the enactive approach. The distinction between cortical dominance and deference is important and worthy of further study, both philosophical and empirical, whether or not the proposed solution turns out to be correct. It is useful in understanding how the variety of empirical phenomena involving neural plasticity now coming to light can be related to philosophical issues about consciousness. This talk is based on ongoing collaboration with the philosopher Susan Hurley (Warwick, UK), as well as on work with the psychologist J. Kevin O'Regan (CNRS, Paris). For more on the enactive/sensorimotor approach, see O'Regan and Nok, BBS 24/5: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/ORegan/.

Last modified: Tue Feb 28 11:14:05 PST 2006 by emma@csli.stanford.edu