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bioRxiv · 10.1101/495523

CHANCE: a method that enables a researcher to fully know the content of consciousness of a subject in scientific experiments

Tanaka, D. H.·Tanabe, T.
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Abstract

The content of consciousness (cC) constitutes an essential part of human life and is at the very heart of the hard problem of consciousness. The cC of a person (e.g., study participant) has been examined indirectly by evaluating the persons behavioral reports, bodily signs, or neural signals. However, the measures do not reflect the full spectrum of the persons cC. In this paper, we define a method, called "CHANging Consciousness Epistemically" (CHANCE), to consciously experience a cC that would be identical to that experienced by another person, and thus directly know the entire spectrum of the others cC. In addition, the ontologically subjective knowledge about a persons cC may be considered epistemically objective and scientific data. The CHANCE method comprises two empirical steps: (1) identifying the minimally sufficient, content-specific neural correlates of consciousness (mscNCC) and (2) reproducing a specific mscNCC in different brains.

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Tanaka, D. H., Tanabe, T.. 2018-12-13. CHANCE: a method that enables a researcher to fully know the content of consciousness of a subject in scientific experiments. https://doi.org/10.1101/495523

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