TY  - GEN
N1  - This paper was created in May 2004. A later and shorter version of Brain-Sign Theory is also available at Cogprints, no.5284, created in June 2006. 
ID  - cogprints5283
UR  - http://cogprints.org/5283/
A1  - Clapson, Philip
TI  - Brain-Sign or The End of Consciousness
Y1  - 2004/05//
N2  - There is no question that something goes on in the head, which has been called consciousness. But is it consciousness? Over the last fifty years, there has been a concerted attempt to show how consciousness can be physical, of the brain. The diversity of views is characteristic of a Kuhnian pre- normal science revolution: but the revolution has not arrived. This is because the assumption that consciousness exists is wrong. In this paper consciousness (with e.g. its subjective/objective distinction) is characterized as a pre-scientific theory. The biological ontology of the phenomenon is revealed, and its placement in organismic biology explained. The phenomenon will be termed brain-sign, as appropriate to its biological function. The nature of this function completely reconstructs our view of ourselves, and other creatures in which it is manifest. The detail and ramifications cannot be addressed at length in a paper, but a research program is outlined briefly. 
AV  - public
KW  - consciousness
KW  -  eliminativism
KW  -  neurophysiological function
KW  -  neural causation
KW  -  organismic communication
KW  -  brain-to-brain communication
KW  -  cultural programming
KW  -  organismic interpretation
ER  -

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