Faculty lecture: Michael Pauen (Berlin)
“Feeling Functions. How to Explain Phenomena, Experience”
According to a widely shared belief, an explanation of phenomenal experience
in terms of neural mechanisms is impossible in principle. The reason for
this “Explanatory Gap” is supposed to be a basic incompatibility between
phenomenal and neuroscientific knowledge: while the latter is framed in
terms of functional relationships, it is impossible to capture phenomenal
experience in functional terms.
Here we will take three steps to avert this conclusion and show what such an
explanation of a paradigmatic type of phenomenal experience might look like.
* In Step I, we will reject some of basic arguments underlying the
“Explanatory Gap” and show that phenomenal experience is necessary
functional. This means that the problem of phenomenal consciousness can be
solved with the familiar methods of hypothesis development and testing.
* In Step II, we hypothesize that certain sorts of phenomenal
experience are intrinsically functional, even if the function is framed in
cognitive rather than behavioral terms: feeling affective pain is feeling an
urge to avoid this feeling.
* In Step III, we will present empirical evidence corroborating this
claim, and demonstrating, how neuroscience can contribute to our
understanding of the mechanisms underlying pain experience.
We conclude that there are strong reasons to believe that neuroscientific
knowledge can explain the experience of affective pain – even if the current
state of knowledge only allows for a proof of principle.
Location:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Luisenstraße 56, Haus 1, Seminar Room 144 (ground floor)
10117 Berlin
Contact:
mb-manager@hu-berlin.de
