Gordon Globus

Hallucination lies at an intriguing border between psychiatry and philosophy. Although Behrendt & Young (B&Y) tie their proposal to Kantian transcendental idealism, other philosophical positions are equally consistent. Cognition is underconstrained by reality not only in hallucination but also in autism and dreaming. Sensory underconstraint is insufficient to encompass schizophrenia. There is also a breakdown in integrative capacity on the cognitive side. From a wider clinical perspective than schizophrenia, there can be underconstraint or overconstraint in sensory and cognitive functionalities.

Classical mechanics cannot naturally accommodate consciousness, whereas quantum mechanics can, but the Heisenberg/Stapp approach, in which consciousness randomly collapses the neural wave function, leaves the conscious function unrestricted by known physical principles. The Umezawa/Yasue approach, in which consciousness offers superposed possibilities to the match with sensory input, is based in the first physical principles of quantum field theory. Stapp thinks of the brain as a measuring device, like a Geiger counter, and overlooks that the brain upholds second-order quantum fields that are symmetry-conserving with respect to reality. Consciousness is cybernetic rather than having a random function

The field of consciousness studies is 'deconstructed' in terms of etymology, definition, and the deep involvement of perceptual consciousness in two persistently controversial areas: the hard problem of qualia and the measurement problem in quantum physics. An alternative to perceptual consciousness is developed within the framework of dissipative quantum thermofield brain dynamics: disclosure. Like consciousness, disclosure is constrained by sensory action, 'self-action' , and memory. The problematics of consciousness/brain, qualia, and measurement in quantum physics are resolved by substituting disclosure for perceptual consciousness and distinguishing the phenomenal brainp from the macroscopic quantum object brainq. This proposal would narrow consciousness studies to the cognitive and reflexive, and opens the possibility of what might be called 'existential studies'

Heidegger has provided a profound account of human existence in terms of the to-be-da. Even though Heidegger disregarded its brain machine basis (and even though brain scientists disregard Heidegger), the issue of the Dasein's machine basis is raised by the empirically extremely well confirmed “supervenience” of the Dasein on the brain. Since the Turing machine will not do as basis for the Dasein, as Dreyfus has shown, contemporary functionalism cannot resolve the issue. Instead an “existential functionalism,” which looks to some other kind of machine than the computer, is called for. A machine that continuously tunes filters on input and that detects any match between abstract properties of the input flux and filter specifications was considered. A match points to those tuning rules whose abstract conditions have been satisfied by input, and the rules thus selected are enabled to generate their own fulfillment through mechanisms that can presently be only speculated about. Such a machine cannot sustain direct perception but is “methodologically solipsistic.” At the most general level of description, the wet machine that provides a supervenience base for the Dasein is to be considered a “windowless monad.”