Addressing Searle’s “Problem of Consciousness”

The philosopher John Searle bemoaned the inadequate scientific descriptions of consciousness. In questing for an empirical theory of consciousness, he focused on 4 issues: 1. [Definition]: What is consciousness? 2. [Process]: Relationship between consciousness and brain activity? 3. [Materials]: What are specific features (of consciousness)? 4. Mistakes common to neurobiologists and cognitive scientists. We surmount these points by invoking a biochemical rationale for the emerging talent of complex neural nets, namely “memory.” The tripartite mechanism of neural memory describes neurons interacting with their surrounding extracellular matrix (nECM), deploying dopants (metal cations and neurotransmitters (NTs)) to form cognitive units of information (cuinfo) (Marx & Gilon, 2012 – 2020). Each NT elicits a unique set of physiologic responses entangled with psychic (emotive) states and is also employed to encode emotive cuinfo within the nECM. None can deny that without memory, there is no consciousness. Consciousness emerges from the neural net’s signaling process transduced into a mental, subjective dimension. It evolved from bacterial signaling with biogenic amines, which are still employed by neurons. The tripartite mechanism avoids the fallacy of depending exclusively on synaptic, electrodynamic signaling as underlying mentality. Rather, it permits the evolution of chemo-dynamic processes by which neurons encode sets of cuinfo, from which memory is integrated. Thus, we respond to Searle’s problems by proposing a chemo-dynamic mechanism whereby neural nets generate a new mental activity dimension, manifest as conscious experience and subjective memory.