Explaining
consciousnes
s?
What to do with
consciousness?
Two different philosophical approaches to
the concept of ‘consciousness’
Implications on what a ‘science of
consciousness’ can consist of
How scientists and philosophers can
respond to these approaches
(Note: approaches come from different
Philosophical naturalism(?)
Dennett – What does science tell us
about consciousness?
Many of our intuitions/questions about
consciousness are mistaken
‘Consciousness’ is ‘just’ temporally
extended, multi-stream cognition
No strict boundaries to what is in or out of
consciousness
No sense in talking about what is
Philosophical
eliminativism
Me/Sloman/Wilkes – Can there be a science of
consciousness (like a science of vision)?
Consciousness scientists want measures,
mechanisms
To treat consciousness as a distinct phenomenon
that we can make predictions/generalisations about
This is not going to happen
‘Consciousness’ is not a valid scientific concept
Dennett
Explaining consciousness for philosophers
is different than for scientists
Conceptual, methodological questions
Use general theoretical frameworks to
undermine philosophical intuitions
Dennett does not provide a measure, or
strict boundaries, of consciousness
Consciousness explained in terms of
What is in consciousness right
now?
Phi phenomenon (video) Cutaneous rabbit
Dennett on explanation
Consciousness doesn’t arise from global
recurrent processing, it is global recurrent processing
Conscious is identical with what lots of
stupid units do, integrated together
Explanation of complex phenomena
Explaining Consciousness?
“…Dennett undoubtedly would like his work to be evenmore provocative than it actually turns out to be. The main thrust of Consciousness Explained is to apply a widely accepted thesis about the relation between mind and brain- --non-homuncular functionalism---in a program of philosophical therapy to rub away a variety of puzzles raised by both philosophers and experimentalists about consciousness. I believe that the central thesis will be relatively uncontentious for most cognitive scientists, but that its use as a cleaning solvent for messy puzzles will be viewed less happily in most quarters.”
Your questions! (part 1)
What sort of consciousness is Dennett talking aboutwhen he says it is culturally determined?
How do other philosophers answer Dennett’s claim that
‘we’re all zombies’
"Only a theory that explains conscious events in terms of
unconscious events could explained consciousness at all”
Is this theory explaining consciousness or it cancels its
necessity as a concept? Is there a way to explain
Alternatives…
Aimed at a different question:
Can there be a science of consciousness
in the same way as there is a science of vision, or metals, neuro-transmitters?
What exactly are we assuming in a
Wilkes
Linguistic considerations
‘Consciousness’ has only been used in its
current sense (inner experience) in
analytic philosophy for a few 100 years
‘Consciousness’ does not easily translate
into other languages (Czech, Mandarin?)
We should not expect
culturally/historically specific folk
Sloman
‘Consciousness’ refers to a large range
of things we do, given our cognitive architecture
Robot philosophers
Different architectures give different
types/grades of consciousness
Irvine
Current consciousness science wants
scientific measures, theories, mechanisms of consciousness
Use existing paradigms and knowledge
In practice, this is not working (for reasons
that have no methodological solutions)
Consciousness science leads to bad science
Anecdote
‘Consciousness’ not a viable target of
Methods
Dissociations/qualitative difference
paradigms (measures)
Integrative techniques
Demarcation of mechanisms
Theories of conscious content do not
match models of perceptual system (multi-level identity claims)
Pragmatics/Eliminative move
‘Consciousness’ prevents clear
communication, leads to bad research, unstable and new concept
Preservation of ‘consciousness’ within
science leads us to treat it as a viable target of research
Should be, and can be, safely eliminated
as a viable scientific concept
We can learn lots of
interesting
things about a range of
animals, but there is no elephant
A boring conclusion?
Not necessarily…
The concepts we use have real implications on
the structure and targets of scientific research
Which projects get grant money
Which research centres get built and funded
What sort of data analysis and reasoning people
use
Which debates continue (pointlessly)
…all because we think that there is a single
Your questions!
If we get rid of a science of consciousness: Would other cognitive
functions studied in the cognitive sciences be sufficient to investigate everything that was subsumed under this label?
Does the distinction between implicit and explicit
mechanisms/processes still make sense consciousness is not a viable scientific concept?
If it comes out that ‘consciousness’ is not a viable scientific
concept, does that mean all the research under the label of 'consciousness science' was useless?
How important are such kind of labels for the actual goal of
finding out how the brain processes information and how this kind (or rather these different kinds) of information processing
make(s) us what we are?
What kind of research approaches are necessary to make sure we
