Abstract:
Given the complex nature of consciousness, many agree that in order to study it properly we need a non-reductive, pluralistic and synthetic
(i.e. systemic) approach. Despite the relative popularity of the systems methodology in the vast field of the study of consciousness, system approach (i.e., modeling something as a system) is very well used for a reductive purposes, and there is no consensus on the issue of a clear understanding of the non-reductive use of one or another system approach in area. Hence, the purpose of my research is methodological reflection on the problem of the adequacy of the system approach for the non-reductive deliberation on the problem of consciousness. I formulate criteria of adequacy in a form of three principles that should be followed in any non-reductive (not just systemic) study of consciousness. The principle of structural-ontological (or metaphysical) neutrality is the first one. This principle suspends all metaphysical solutions to the problem of consciousness and plays the role of a necessary precondition. Many pointless disputes in the field could be avoided if the disputing parties adhered to this principle. The second principle of differentiation of ontic modes of experience and epistemic perspectives retains the multifaceted complex structure of consciousness after it is stripped of its metaphysical baggage. The principle of embodiment adds some feedback dynamics to the story. At the next step I implement the principles of adequacy in a particular case of the General parametric systems theory, developed by a philosopher and logician Avenir Uyemov. The conceptual foundations of this theory in relation to its compliance with the criteria of adequacy are revealed. It turns out that two of three principles exist at the meta-language of the theory. The principle of neutrality follows by definition of the General system theory – i.e., theory applicable to all kinds of systems. And the principle of embodiment exists as a feedback of the substrate to the structure of a system. The principle of differentiation in this case is the most crucial. If this theory is not enriched at the level of object-language with epistemic perspectives and ontic modes of experience, then we won’t get a no-reductive explication of consciousness, even if it remains systemic by definition. In the end I give a systemic definition of consciousness through its basic feature which is (I conjecture) modeling of reality or different kinds of experience through epistemic perspectives, where complex structural ontology of consciousness ‘in-forms’ or structures its epistemology, which in turn models it in accordance with the needs of a conscious system.
