The man is an animal different from the other animals because it has
something moreover; that also means that it has something of commun
with the other animals. This something moreover can be explained
at the start of three principles between which it is necessary for us
to make a choice. Or this something moreover is a supernatural
substance, the soul, or this something moreover is a
supernatural process or a natural process. The concept of
substance is a specific concept with Western philosophy, the concept
of supernatural process is a notion of Eastern philosophy, the concept
of natural process is a notion of Western science. The concept of
substance corresponds to a mode to think static: the substance is
what there is the permanent one in the things which change. The
concept of process corresponds to a mode to think dynamic.

Our choice to explain the behavior is made on the scientific concept
of natural process. This choice does not exclude the presence from a
supernatural process, but owing to the fact that it is supernatural it
is incomprehensible by the man and fact part of beliefs which, if they
can justify an action, cannot be used to explain a process.

The mind is a process of the brain as circulation is a process of
the cars moving on roads. We can say: " circulation is fluid, dense,
stopped ". But if we wish to explain why circulation is stopped, we
are obliged to say: " because the blue car had an accident ". The
explanation of the state of a process is given by the state of a
thing. The explanation of the state of mind can be given only by the
state of networks of neurons.

If our choice to explain the behavior is made on the scientific concept
of natural process, we are not allowed to ask the question "what is
consciousness". This type of question lets suppose that consciousness
is a substance. The good question is: having defined different conscious
state of the individual, which are the corresponding states of networks
of neurons ?

This approach does not exclude the possibility that there is a
substance or a supernatural process, but this possibility is a
philosophical or religious question for which the answer is purely
subjective and has an eigenvalue with each individual.

I agree that consciousness cannot be explained using the language of substances or by analogy to substance. I think, using the examples you give that consciousness still permits at least two levels of explanation: the first is a reductionistic explanation as the one you cite, in which we explain consciousness in terms of the neural activities to which it corresponds. The second type or level of explanation, however is in terms of the emergent properties of that first level (e.g. the circulation of traffic is an emergent property of the activity of cars). It is not an easy task to describe consciousness in the terms of an emergent property and, like most emergent properties, it cannot be fully explained by reducing it to neural activities. My "sense of purpose" in carrying out a task is wholly dependent upon the neural activity going on and is not a something in addition to those activities. However, a description of those activities does not describe my sense of purpose.

>This approach does not exclude the possibility that >there is a substance or a supernatural process, but >this possibility is a philosophical or religious question >for which the answer is purely subjective and has an >eigenvalue with each individual.

I must disagree. (For one, I'm unclear as to what is meant by "subjective" in this context). I also feel that that notion of an emergent property is thrown around too easily. The meaning here, along with the meaning of "reduction" must be carefully specified before any useful work is done:

>The second type or level of explanation, however is in >terms of the emergent properties of that first level(e.g. >the circulation of traffic is an emergent property of the >activity of cars). It is not an easy task to describe >consciousness in the terms of an emergent property >and, like most emergent properties, it cannot be fully >explained by reducing it to neural activities.

On the contrary, a complete account of the activity of each individual car amounts to a complete account of traffic. If you had a complete account of the behavior of each individual car at the intersection of 5th and Broad, you would never need to observe the traffic as a whole, and would know all there is to know about the circulation of traffic at 5th and Broad. As such, traffic flow can be said to "ontologically reduce" to the behavior of individual cars on a surface in time. However, as you correctly point out:

>However, a description of those activities does not >describe my sense of purpose.

I presume that by "activities" you mean the relevant processes in neuronal systems in the context of the organism and its enviornment. So the analogy to traffic flow fails...this is a different kind of emergence then. Furthermore:

>My "sense of purpose" ...
>is not a something in addition to those activities. >However, a description of those activities does not >describe my sense of purpose.

But if something is missing in the description of those activities that IS a part of your sense of purpose, then your sense of purpose IS something in addition to those activities. That is, your sense of purpose does NOT ontologically reduce to those activities. The problem is that there are various meanings for "reduction" and "emergence". A long digression into the philosophy of mind becomes a very long digression. This is the way I see the mind/brain problem:

The problem of consciousness entails fundamental questions about the nature of reality. Questions that, I contend, have empirical content, or - at the very least - bear on theory construction in mind-brain science. The problem is that the conceptual issues here are deep and nuanced. Philosophical analysis, however, which deals with these issues, gets bogged down in its own polemical process and a bottom-line level of conceptual clarity never gets shared with theorists in the relevant empirical sciences. As a consequence, writers like Damasio, LeDoux, Crick, Pankseep etc. tend, at times, to straddle the reductionist/non-reductionist fence when trying to suggest explanations for experience, consciousness, "the feeling of", the causal status of mental states etc. Furthermore, they remain unclear as to sort of explanation they are providing. Meanwhile analytic philosophers of mind keep arguing about the utility of concepts like emergence, supervinience, the meaning of inter-theorhtic reduction etc. The result: CREEPING PROGRESS. (At the risk of sounding inconsistent, I do think that the distinction between natural and logical supervinience has sufficient clear, intuitive content to do some useful work in clarifying the notion of explanation in mind/brain science)
The bottom line I feel is this:
Our brain processes either do - or do not - cause, access, generate, correlate with, covary with, provide a supervinince base for, etc. (Here you can choose and argue about language to your hearts content!) a fundamentally 1st person aspect of reality, i.e. Qualia with a capital "q". You can be "Searlian" and call this a 1st person aspect of physical reality, or "Chalmerian" and insist upon ontological catagories required for a 1st person aspect of information. Those that are so inclined can choose sides and argue all they want about this as well. If this is what was meant by a "religious question" in the above post, do all the theologizing you want. Just keep it seperate from the "science" of the matter...qualia either are, or they are not. (Excuse my Licence. but if qualia are at the very least counterfactual, then "science" must perhaps be able to at least consider an exception to its otherwise pristine, 3rd person ontology.)
If qualia are not, as in Dennet, Churchland etc. solving the mind/brain is a problem in solving/decoding the information processes instantiated within neural networks and systems. If qualia are - as in Chalmers, Nagel, Jackson, and implicit in Kripke and Searle - then decoding the brain remains a problem. But what now emerges is the problem of the form AND content (These may be distinct) of psychophysical laws, as do the problems of either 1) how qualia can possibly be causal and 2) If qualia are epiphenomena...why is the universe this strange (phenomenal quality simply happens to match neural functionality?!).
The reality is that we do seem to have brains, these brains are doing something in some sort of way, and god-the-neurobiologist knows that real honest to goodness true propositions can be articulated about all of this. As human beings we should simply try to articulate as many of these as we can, and remain clear on the difference between that endever and the attempt to articulate true propositions about god. After all, we wouldnt want him laughing too much up there.  
Sorry about the newbie diatribe, but as a psychiatrist/theorist of mind, I feel this needs to be said.
Joe  
 

>question for which the answer is purely subjective and has an
>eigenvalue with each individual.  I must disagree. (For one, I'm
>unclear as to what is meant by "subjective" in this context)

First I must tell you that my mother language is french and that I
know english and german. So sometimes I use the wrong word.

By "subjective" I mean "taking place exclusively in a person's
brain rather than the external world". That something is not part of
the cognitive domain, because something cognitive may have a
relation with the external world. That something is part of the
affective domain, and I call it value (sorry, not eigenvalue wich
is a mathematical term).

The cognitive domain is where information is stored.
However the brain is not initialy designed to store information
it is not a computer. It is designed for adaptation, to maintain a
stable dynamical equilibrium of the hole individual. So, part of
the brain is a control system and this part is the affective domain.

Value is a formal concept related with feeling. We experience
feeling because the control system initiate some action, internal
and/or external, following a perturbation internal or external. the
feeling is either agreeable or disagreeable, positive or negative.
But the control system is a natural one, and in nature negative
doesn't exist. The control system is based on the principle of
activation and inhibition and so value is always positive. If we
want to put some dimension on value, we can say that feeling
is the logarithm of value.

Value is not qualia. When I say"the red apple is good", red is a
feature and part of the cognitive domain, good is a value part of
the affective domain. The use of the word "qualia" comes from
the fact that in our culture everything is based on the reason and
the affective aspect is completely ignored since Socrates. This
doesn't mean that the ancients did not consider affectivity, but
they had an explanation based on the equilibrium of the four
physiological fluids.

>On the contrary, a complete account of the activity of each
>individual car amounts to a complete account of traffic. If you
>had a complete account of the behavior of each individual car
>at the intersection of 5th and Broad, you would never need to
>observe the traffic as a whole, and would know all there is to
>know about the circulation of traffic at 5th and Broad. As such,
>traffic flow can be said to "ontologically reduce" to the behavior
>of individual cars on a surface in time.

What would be the interest in the complete account of trafic?
What we are interested in is what action to take when there is
a perturbation at some location. Of course there can be many
different types of perturbation and location at many different
times. But the actual problem is limited at one location with a
small amount of cars during a limited time.

Of course we can solve the problem because we know what is
a car. But knowing what is a car doesn't mean that you know
how the fuel pump works, what are the additive in the oil to
better lubricate the engine, and so on.

To day, to talk about the brain we have concepts as mind, soul,
and then physiological entities like neuros and synapses.
I think we need a new concept in between. This new concept
is proposed by Jean-Pierre changeux as "mental object".
A mental object is the state of a small network of neurons.

So neuroscientists study the behavior of the small networks
of neurons and everything related to biochemie and biophysics.
The philosophers and the psychologs study the mind, a process
of the brain, starting from the mental object. To study a process,
you need to have some basic notions of cybernetics or control
systems. Because a process is complicated, it is easier to represent
it with a graphics. How, this is new for philosopher!

I have tried to explain all that on my web site, in french.

>However, a description of those activities does not describe my sense of purpose.

The sense of purpose is related to "finality" wich is a feature of
some systems.
-"A system is a set of elements dynamically interacting and organized in relation to a goal" (J. de ROSNAY, 1990, p. 93).
J. de ROSNAY comment is as follows: "The introduction of finality (the goal of the system) in this definition may seem surprising. Understandably, the finality of a machine has been defined and specified by man, but what dare we say about the finality of a system like a cell? The cell’s "goal" is in no way mysterious. It implies no project. It is registered a posteriori to maintain its structure and to divide itself. The same can be said about the ecosystem. Its finality - again, not project - is to maintain its equilibria and to allow life’s development. Nobody did established atmosphere’s content of oxygen, nor the earth’s average temperature, nor the composition of oceans. Nevertheless, they maintain themselves within very narrow limits".

However we have no explanation how we are aware of this finality.

Here's a good article in pdf format entitled "Quantum, consciousness and panpsychism: a solution to the hard problem". I haven't read it yet, but i thought i'd post it for yall to check out... it looks pretty interesting....

http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003489/01/qcp.pdf