Mark Solms clearly assumes, in his Psychology Today column, that the mind is just what the brain does. But that’s precisely the claim that the very existence of consciousness clouds:
Solms hopes to find the answer not in reason but emotion:
“Most important is that tiny lesions in the brainstem (as small as 2mm3) obliterate all consciousness, including visual consciousness. This stands in sharp contrast to the fact that consciousness is preserved with prenatal or neonatal destruction of the entire cortex. These facts suggest that the fundamental type of consciousness is affect, and that it is generated not in the cortex but the brainstem. The sentient subject is literally constituted by affect, and we only become conscious of our visual (and other) cortical processing when it is ‘palpated’ by these brainstem neuromodulatory systems. In other words, we sentient subjects feel our way into our intrinsically unconscious cortical processes to become aware of them. – Mark Solms, Why We’ve Failed to Solve the Hard Problem of Consciousness” at Psychology Today
That sounds like another fix that keeps the discussion going without really shedding much light. But at least the discussion continues.
News, “Psychologist: Consciousness is not a thing but a point of view” at Mind Matters News
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