The Problems of Consciousness

A Skeptic about Consciousness


This is a fictional email exchange, designed to bring out some of the difficulties we have in using language to pick out our sense of the word "Consciousness". What if someone steadfastly maintained that they had no such thing? In attempting to convince him that he does, or perhaps to discover in just what way he is broken, we may also sharpen our own ideas about the phenomenon.


From: skeptic@example.com
To: poc@theogeny.com
Subject: Consciousness a problem?

I've read your pages on "the Problems of Consciousness", and I must say that I really don't get it. Are you just saying that neurophysiology is too hard, and we'll never figure it out? I don't understand your claim that, as well as the facts about physics and biology that we can find out using better and better instruments, there are also somehow some _other_ facts.

All these metaphorical words like "blooming, buzzing confusion" and "inner narrator" are just reflections of our own ignorance; once we've found out more about how brains work, we'll be able to make tighter and less metaphorical statements about mental states, and we won't have to resort to metaphor.

(I realize that what I'm saying here is something that you explicitly reject on that "unsatisfactory arguments" page, but I have to admit that I don't understand your counterarguments at all. You say that you can't imagine how any objective facts about your brain could tell you anything about your consciousness; but I can't understand why you think that!)

Cordially,
A Skeptic About Consciousness


  From: poc@theogeny.com
To: skeptic@example.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

Thanks for the note! I admit it's hard to find a small set of words that picks out exactly what we mean by "consciousness". Just introspect for a moment, though, and you'll probably get the idea. "Subjective consciousness" refers to your inner experience, as you actually experience it. The facts about what it's like to be you that can't be captured by any amount of description of what the atoms in your brain are doing.

We're willing to admit that science may get to be arbitrarily good at describing, and mostly even predicting, the states of the atoms and neurons in our brains. But that still wouldn't capture the *inner experience* of seeing a red thing, or thinking a particular thought.

Hope that helps!

POC


From: skeptic@example.com
To: poc@theogeny.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

No, actually it doesn't help much! Those are just all the same metaphors again, and I don't know why you think that science will not be able to find out the facts behind them. Of course, if you think that consciousness has causal impacts on the physical world, so that eventually we'll discover that human behavior actually violates the laws of physics, that would be the case; but I don't know why anyone would think that. We're made of matter; why assume that part of it is magical?

Skeptic


  From: poc@theogeny.com
To: skeptic@example.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

Hm! So when you introspect, you don't find any peculiar and ineffable stream of experience, any feeling of *you*ness, that is apart from anything that you can imagine objective scientific facts explaining? That's sort of puzzling!

For instance, if you step on a nail, and say "that hurts!", aren't you reporting on something besides the condition of your neurons (since, after all, unless your a neurophysiologist, you probably don't *know* anything about the condition of your neurons!). That *subjective* feeling of pain, and the space in which it happens, is what we mean by subjective consciousness.

POC


From: skeptic@example.com
To: poc@theogeny.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

Terms like "feeling of youness" don't make much sense to me! I think the reason you have so much trouble finding a straightforward word for the concept you want to talk about is that the concept doesn't exist!

When I step on a nail and say "that hurts!", I'm not saying something about my neurons in the way I would be if I were to say "my neurons are really small". But the fact that I say it is a _consequence_ of the state of my neurons. It's like when someone plays the violin: the sounds that occur aren't _about_ the bow and the strings and the sound-box, but they are _caused_ by facts about the state of those things. The only "space" in which things like my pains happen is the space between my ears, and I don't see any reason to think that physics will have any special difficulty in accounting for what happens in that particular volume of space!

Skeptic


  From: poc@theogeny.com
To: skeptic@example.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

My, you *are* a difficult case! *8) Let me try a couple of different approaches at once:

When you say "That hurts!", the statement is, unlike the violin music, either true or false. That is, sometimes when your neurons cause you to say it, it's not true (if you say it as a line in a play, for instance). Other times (when you step on a nail), it *is* true. If you have no subjective consciousness, what is there for the statement to be true or false *of*?

The second question is inspired by Frank Jackson's "knowledge argument". Imagine a child brought up in a completely black-and-white environment, with complete access to the Net and the external world via only monochromatic displays (alternately, you can picture someone with surgically attached filters over their eyes, that reduce all incoming light to monochromatic images). Imagine that this person becomes the world's greatest neuroscientist, and learns all there is to know, objectively, about how the atoms and neurons in brains (including her own brain) work. Then one day the filters and devices are taken away, and she experiences red for the first time. Know she knows *what it's like* to see red. Hasn't she learned something new? Aren't there, therefore, facts about the universe that can't be captured by objective study, but only known through subjective experience?

I'd be very interested in your thoughts on these questions!

POC


From: skeptic@example.com
To: poc@theogeny.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

To understand pains in people, think about overflows in computers. Sometimes when a computer prints "overflow", it's because an overflow has occurred, and sometimes (like when someone runs the program "print 'overflow'") it's not. This doesn't mean that there's some "ineffable subjective space" inside the computer where overflows happen! It's just that "overflow" is a shorthand for a huge and complex set of possible states of the machine's circuits. "An overflow has occurred" is true (or false) of the machine's circuits, just like "I'm in pain" is true (or false) of the state of my brain. I can correctly say the latter without being a neurophysiologist, just like the computer can correctly say the former without running a program about computer architecture. So (unless you think that computers are conscious and overflows are ineffable subjective things!) I don't see a problem here.

The "neurophysiologist with sadistic parents" example doesn't have much bite, either. Sure, the first time she sees red she will "know" something new, in the trivial sense that some of her neurons will fire in a pattern that they've never fired in before, but that's not really a useful sense of "know". Consider, for instance, a big rock off in the desert somewhere that's stood up on end for all of human history. If it falls over some day, the world is now in a state that it's never been in before, but that doesn't mean that there's some magical fact that we couldn't have known before! If the neurophysiologist has _really_ learned all there is to know about objective physics, she won't be particularly surprised by anything that happens when red light finally falls on her retinas for the first time. Why should she be?

Skeptic


  From: poc@theogeny.com
To: skeptic@example.com
Subject: re: Consciousness a problem?

Whew! You've got me rather backed into a corner, here. I *know* that I have inner subjective experience, and that I can't imagine any objective discoveries telling me anything essential about it. On the other hand, just because it's so inherently private and subjective, if you claim that you *don't* have it I have a very hard time proving (or even strongly suggesting!) otherwise.

I'll see if I can come up with any stronger arguments. And if in the meantime you suddenly discover a Cartesian Theater inside yourself, do let me know! *8)

POC


This is one tough debater. If you have an argument that might finally convince our skeptic, or if you'd like to ask him anything about his experience of nonsubjectivity, send email to poc-skeptic@theogeny.com, and we will see if we can make up a good reply for him. And of course, if you feel the same way that he does about this stuff, we'd be very interested in hearing from you!


David Chess accepts all the blame, but Steve White gets some of the credit. If you're lost, see the site map. This page last updated January 20th, 2000.