Contemporary developments in cognitive sciences have uncovered strong correlations between mental events and nervous activity. Despite their achievements, cognitive sciences are still unable to provide an adequate explanation for the concept of conscious selves. There are two main reasons behind this inability. The first one is the mismatch between the distributed nature of the nervous information processing and the unified nature of the consciousness. The second one is the fundamental differences between conscious experiences and the objects and events in classical physics. This thesis aims to provide a basis for a theory for consciousness and conscious selves by using certain findings of modern physics, neuroscience and philosophy. The argumentation is based on the biological necessity of having neural mechanisms that act like a self and quantum-theoretical approaches to consciousness. Consequently, it is shown that, the concept of conscious self is just a concept that we use to encompass several related concepts and experiences rather than being an ontological reality that is assumed by our common-sense intuitions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12606991/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| Creators | Alkan, Sarper |
| Contributors | Sayan, Erdinc |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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