Daniel Alroy

The New Foundation of Knowledge Daniel Alroy

Being conscious is the central fact of human experience. Yet, it is not presently known what consciousness is and what it does. For example, Physicalism, the currently dominant theory of knowledge takes the position that the non-conscious brain can do anything that the conscious brain can do. Artificial intelligence (AI) takes a similar view, that the digital computer can do anything that the conscious brain can do. In short, consciousness is deemed to be evolutionary fluke. This book shows that the innateness of mental faculties is an empirical fact and establishes the reality and centrality of consciousness. Physics is considered to be the most basic science. However, how we get to know the physical world is a more basic question. Until recently, the central issue was this: are sensations innate, or they imported from the senses into the brain? We now know that sensations are innate. They are not imported into the brain from the senses or from the outside world through the senses. Consider sound. Recently, children born deaf have been made to experience sensations of sound by the electrical stimulation of hearing-related brain areas. This fact proves that the sensation of sound is innate and that it is not a property of air vibration. Present-day neuroscience takes all sensations to be innate. Thus, the direct electrical stimulation of vision-related brain areas in children born blind would elicit sensations of light. I expect such experiments to take place within five years. It would prove that the sensation of light is innate, private, and not a property of electromagnetic radiation. For the last 300 years, theories of knowledge are based on the directly opposite assumption that no sensation is innate. It is now necessary to bring the foundation of knowledge up to date.