Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Alireza Farnam

Research Center of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Tabriz. Iran.

Abstract

How can physical processes in the brain, such as the movement of electrons and chemical interactions, lead to mental, conscious experiences such as feelings, visualizations, and thoughts? This is the difficult problem of consciousness, according to David Chalmers. Focusing on the role of language—especially inner language—this article suggests that language, as a mediating mechanism, plays a fundamental role in linking the material processes of the brain with psychological experiences through its influence on memory and arousal. Based on linguistic, neurological, and evolutionary evidence, it is argued that language can provide a possible mechanism for the emergence of mental qualities (qualia) through sensory synchronization, conceptualization of sensory input before conscious processing, memory organization, continuous narrative formation, and influence on arousal. All of these events occur in memory, and memory is both a platform for the emergence and continuation of language and, over the course of evolution, has become capable of retrieving images and information from memory. On the other hand, by influencing internal arousal, language has been able to create a mood appropriate to the images extracted from memory, thus leading to the formation of qualia (which is a combination of mental images and internal states appropriate to them). This article emphasizes that human language has gradually developed from an interpersonal communication tool to an internal language within an individual (according to Vygotsky) over several hundred thousand years of uninterrupted evolution and it is relevant to all human psychological functions, including perception and the description of mental images.

Keywords

• Consciousness, inner language, Chalmers'
• s dilemma, narrative, qualia, Vygotsky, synchronization of senses

Main Subjects

• ontology