“[Bennett and Hacker] argue that for some neuro-
scientists, the brain does all manner of things: it be-
lieves (Crick); interprets (Edelman); knows (Blake-
more); poses questions to itself (Young); makes de-
cisions (Damasio); contains symbols (Gregory) and
represents information (Marr). Implicit in these as-
sertions is a philosophical mistake, insofar as it un-
reasonably inflates the conception of the ‘brain’ by
assigning to it powers and activities that are nor-
mally reserved for sentient beings... these claims are
not false; rather they are devoid of sense.”
This is but one example of a swelling critical chorus which
will grow markedly in virulence and influence. Our develop-
ment, or some related version, leads toward explicit incorpo-
ration of the full ‘sentient being’ into observational studies
of consciousness. For humans, whose hypersociality is both
glory and bane, this particularly involves understanding the
effects of the embedding social and cultural system of epige-
netic inheritance on immediate conscious experience.
The bottom line would seem to be the urgent necessity of
extending the perspective of Nisbett et al. (2001) to brain
imaging and other empirical studies of consciousness, and ex-
panding the global neuronal workspace model accordingly, a
matter which our development here suggests is indeed possi-
ble, if not straightforward.
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