On the Problem of “Other Mind”. Are there Manifestations of Consciousness in “Vegetative State” Patients?

Abstract

Author discusses new approaches to the problem of “other mind” that are connected with the research on the vegetative state patients and with the discovery of the way to communicate with them via functional brain mapping methods. Epistemological analysis of the results of this research helps to clarify the signs of the existence of consciousness of the subject under the conditions where outer expression of psychical states is impossible because of the motor functions blocade. The communication medium in this case is brain neurodynamical equivalents of certain consciousness phenomena that are registrated by functional MRT. These neurodynamical equivalents are the code structures that are deciphered by the researcher. The questions of adequacy of cognition of the subject’s own consciousness phenomena in the process of autocommunication are raised in connection with the classical analogy argument, the acuteness of fundamental epistemological research on this matter is shown. The discovery of the way of communication with vegetative state patients verifies the possibility of the realization of the new way of communication. The success in the deciphering of the brain neurodynamic codes of the subjective reality phenomena show the perspective for such type of interpersonal communications, which can have a strategic meaning for the social self-organization development.