The Problem of Consciousness
Why is consciousness considered a problem, at least for the scientists? Well, in
a nutshell, they just don't know what it is. This is where science and
philosophy cross paths and, from what I can determine, where neither science nor
philosophy know where either path is leading. The questions are endless: where
does it exists? In the brain? Externally? In the mind? What is the mind? Is the
mind the same as the brain? Is the mind an emergent property of the brain? Or is
it the other way around: is the brain a creation of the mind? Indeed, is
everything a creation of the mind? If so, who's mind? My mind (solipsism)? A
collective mind? Does every living thing have some degree of consciousness? Does
everything have some degree of consciousness? Is consciousness all there is? Or
is consciousness nothing more than electro-chemical activity in a lump of
organic matter?
The learned opinions, once again, fall into two - perhaps three - main groups.
As always, once a materialist, always a materialist although, for some reason
when it comes to this subject, the label "physicalist" is more prevalent. This
group includes such heavy hitters as Daniel Dennett and the Churchlands
(Patricia and Paul), as well as a couple of well known names in my own land:
Susan Blackmore and Richard Dawkins. Perhaps it is the conspiracy theorist in me
but I do believe there has been a concerted and extremely successful media
campaign pushing the opinions of this group. Dawkins in particular has been very
conspicuous in the more "high-brow" UK media such as the Guardian and
Independent. Blackmore is a regular on TV, eager to grasp any opportunity to
debunk anything with the remotest whiff of the paranormal about it. Her partner
is "Mr. Popular Science" for the BBC, Adam Hart Davis and, furthermore, Ms
Blackmore is a consulting editor for the Skeptical Inquirer, the organ of the
afore-mentioned CSICOP (now called CSI). Along with Richard Dawkins, another
name listed on the Fellows page of the CSICOP website is that of Dr. Richard
Wiseman - a stage conjurer turned scientist who seems to be BBC radio's resident
paranormal debunker. Of course, stage magicians are natural headline seekers and
in the vanguard of media sceptics. One need look no further than another CSICOP
stalwart, James "The Amazing" Randi for evidence of this fact. I'll probably
return to this rant at a later stage because I think it is important to show
what a one-sided view we are presented with when it comes to the media, at least
here in the UK.
With a label like "physicalist" you might expect that the main proponents of
this view would be physicists. Well, you might not be entirely correct in that
assumption but I doubt that you would be very surprised either if I were to say
that the Field-Marshals of the physicalist campaign are biologists,
neuro-biologists, zoologists ... those whose academic and professional
backgrounds are, might I suggest, steeped in Darwinian schooling. To these
people it must be inconceivable that consciousness could be anything other than
a consequence of natural selection. Something that has emerged out of neural
activity in the brain - hence the term "emergent property". Another term you
will inevitably come across if you read anything related to consciousness is "
epiphenomenon"
which simply means that mental phenomena are always the consequence of physical
(brain) activity. So, looking at it from a biological viewpoint, the evolution
of the nervous system has finally resulted in the most complex biological organ
on earth: the human brain. The more the neuro-scientists prod and probe the
brain, the more they claim to be able to isolate the centres of mental activity.
Poke a wire in here and the subject will see red (literally as well as, perhaps,
metaphorically). Stimulate another area of the brain and certain memories are
triggered. Starve the brain of oxygen and the subject will see a bright white
light which, of course (they would say), explains all this nonsense about
Near-Death Experiences and white lights and tunnels (see
Susan Blackmore on anoxia).
A personal comment here: one of my many career false-starts was in the
television repair trade. I would poke a wire at certain bits of circuitry and lo
and behold, the screen would display red. No doubt here that the TV circuitry
itself generated the red on-screen. However, a moment later I would touch
another component and the screen would light up with moving pictures and
intelligent dialogue. Would anyone (even a biologist) argue that this
intelligence was produced solely by the internal workings of the set?
A man who has devoted himself to furthering the study of consciousness is the
Australian philosopher, David Chalmers. The good professor has put together a
catalogue of papers by the leading lights of consciousness research (all
flavours) as well as an intimidating amount of his own writing. Any Google
search on this subject will produce a link to Chalmers very near the top of the
list. Chalmers recognised and defined the problem(s) of consciousness. He
described what he called the "easy" problems (five of them) and the one "hard"
problem. The easy problems are those being researched by the above mentioned
neuroscientists along with psychologists, medical practitioners and so on. These
include the mechanics of sensory perception; how the brain integrates sensory
stimuli and external information and how it then reacts to all this input. This
is the objective stuff and it is what scientists love to get to grips with: it
is what scientists do. Chalmers isn't being derogatory when he uses the word
"easy" in this context. He is not describing the degree of difficulty of the
research but rather the concept. For example, it is easy for us to imagine
scientists, sometime soon, being able to explain precisely how the images
captured by the eye are processed by the brain. It is not hard to project
further and see a time when science can explain all of the physical and
electro-chemical processes of the brain.
What Chalmers defines as "hard", however, is the subjective stuff. Science
doesn't do subjectivity very well; in fact some might say that science doesn't
do subjectivity at all. A doctor can pinpoint the cause of a pain and explain
exactly why your big toe is throbbing like that. But she can't feel your agony:
empathy is not in her medical kit. Feelings, emotions, love, the experience of
the colour blue, the bliss of a kiss or the despair of the loss of a loved one.
Where are the the instruments or mathematical models for these experiences. They
might be able to tell us how; they might even have a stab at why, but they can
never tell us what it feels like.
Chalmers, like many philosophers before him (Descartes and Plato to name but
two) is a dualist, that is: there are two fundamental aspects of reality, one
being mind stuff and the other being matter stuff. To be more precise, Chalmers
is a "property dualist" which means, if I understand it correctly, he accepts
that there is only one stuff, or substance, but that substance has two distinct
and irreducible properties. Descartes and his like believed there were two
separate substances (Cartesian, or substance dualism), again one being material
and the other mind (soul, spirit). If I may wander momentarily into
philosophy-speak, Descartes described the mind as being "unextended" in space
whereas matter is extended. Descartes was a religious man and it should be noted
here that most religions take a dualist standpoint, separating the soul from the
material world.
To return, momentarily, to the materialists - specifically Dawkins - I find this
quote from his book "
The
Selfish Gene" particularly telling:
"
The evolution of the capacity to simulate seems to have
culminated in subjective consciousness. Why this should have happened is, to me,
the most profound mystery facing modern biology."
I'll have more to say on Dawkins in the section on evolution, later.