Does the Efficacy of the Natural Principle of Consistency Explain Consciousness?

Abstract

Based on assumptions common in physics, the emergence of consciousness is derived from the concept of a nature preceding fysical nature. It is argued that an initial absence of being is a force-bearing inconsistency. The analysis presented here allows the human mental system to be conceived as a workspace of the natural principle of consistency (NPC). In the conceptualized workspace, subjective qualities of experience are taken over from the NPC's domain by virtue of rules whose origin, as well as that of the qualities, is not physical. The paper concludes with an illustration of how this workspace model does explain shifts in focus of attention. The lack in the theory of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model of Consciousness (GNW) of a sufficient explanation for these shifts in the neuronal workspace, as well as for the origin of memories and the subjective qualities of experience, argues for integration of both models.