Ontology Theory of Consciousness

Abstract

The transgenic extension of a mouse's color vision and research in which the insertion of a gene enables blind mice to see provide a much firmer basis for a materialist theory of consciousness than has hitherto been available. Such seminal research offers empirical evidence that qualities are physical. In the Ontology Theory, consciousness is described as resulting from a process beginning with energies conveyed from noumena in the environment. The energies stimulate sense receptors which in a recursive exchange with memory result in qualities. The qualities consist of proteins or other neuronal molecules which, to the mind of the conscious individual, comprise semi-independent memory items (SIMIs), or phenomenal objects which are projected to the environment and are perceived as environmental objects. Thus, in the consciousness of the individual, environmental objects consist of the ontology of particular molecules.