Explaining
Consciousness
?
Chalmers and
Block
Liz Irvine
Hong Yu Wong
Chalmers: Hard Problem
Easy problems (awareness)
the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli
the integration of information by a cognitive system
the reportability of mental states
the focus of attention
the deliberate control of behavior
the difference between wakefulness and sleep.
Hard problem (consciousness)Functions and abilities
Easy problems are easy because “they concern the explanation of cognitive abilities and functions”
Identify a function
Describe the mechanism that fulfills that function
Hard problem is hard because this strategy doesn’t work.
Why should these functions/mechanisms give rise to experience?Explanatory gap
Even if we have a full explanation of all our cognitive functions and abilities, we still won’t have anexplanation for why we have experiences (Levine)
Crick and Koch – consciousness and binding5 Strategies
1.
Avoid the hard problem (Crick and Koch, other consciousness researchers)2.
Deny the hard problem3.
Try to solve the hard problem but fail (Baars)4.
Explain the structure of consciousness (limited)Alternative Strategy: Dualism
Physical theories are insufficient
Add an ‘extra ingredient’ into the fundamentals of the universe
Mass, space-time, EM forces, consciousness!
“Nothing in this approach contradicts anything in physical theory; we simply need to add furtherbridging principles to explain how experience arises from physical processes.”
Fundamental laws/bridging
principles
1.
Structural coherence: The structure of visualawareness isomorphic to structure of
consciousness.
Cognitive processing closely tied to experience.2.
Organisational invariance: Two systems with same functional organisation have the sameexperiences.
Functionally identical robot-Liz has the same experiences as me.3.
Double aspect-principle: Information has both physical and phenomenal (conscious) aspects.Questions
Dualism is difficult. Bridging principles across EM forces and mass go across the same type of stuff (matter). Bridging principles across matter and consciousness: how??? (Descartes)
“The informational view allows us tounderstand how experience might have a
subtle kind of causal relevance in virtue of its status as the intrinsic nature of the
physical.” ????
Block: A and P consciousness
There are conflations (confusions) in scientific theorising about consciousness
Phenomenal (P) consciousness: experience, what-it-is-like, the redness of red, non-functional
Like Chalmers’ ‘consciousness’
Access (A) consciousness: content that can be used in reasoning, action and speech, functional
Often related to reportability, but not always(animals)
Blindsight, no A, no P
Blindsighters have damage to V1, and do not (spontaneously) respond to visual stimuli
They deny having visual experience in their ‘blind’ field
BUT when forced, they respond above chance at ‘X’ vs. ‘O’ or horizontal vs. vertical lines
Visual information NOT used in reasoning/action/speech
Lack of A consciousness
IF we believe their reports that they are not visually conscious (Block says we need not), thenSuperblindsight, A without P
Imagine a blindsighter forces themselves to ‘guess’ what visual stimuli are in front of them, and use these ‘guesses’ inreasoning/action/speech
Still (apparently) no P consciousness
BUT now we have A consciousness
(Partial zombie)Drilling: P without A
Imagine being in a noisy building
Suddenly you realise ‘Aha! Someone has been drilling for 30 minutes, but I have only justnoticed!’
Maybe you think that you were P consciousness of the noise all the time, but only now are Aconscious of it
So, P without A consciousness is possibleAre we investigating A or P
consciousness?
Block argues most/all theories of consciousness are about A, not P consciousness
Common problem “..is jumping from the premise that "consciousness" is missing - without being clear about what kind of consciousness ismissing — to the conclusion that
How not to reason about P
consciousness
‘In some pathological/experimental cases, consciousness seems to be missing.’
‘We know this because people someabilities/functions {F1, F2….Fn} are missing (e.g. using information flexibly, reporting information, reasoning with information).
‘So phenomenal (P) consciousness is identical with abilities/functions {F1, F2…FN}.’Block vs. Chalmers
Chalmers: it is impossible to investigate‘consciousness’ using the methods of cognitive
science, because consciousness cannot be identified with a function
=> dualism
Block: it is impossible to directly investigate Pconsciousness using methods from cognitive science, because P consciousness is not identifiable with a function, and is (maybe) not directly related to reasoning/actions/speech
=> much of consciousness science is confusedSome possibilities
“This suggests an intimate relation between A-consciousness and P-A-consciousness. Perhapsthere is something about P-consciousness that greases the wheels of
accessibility….Alternatively, perhaps
P-consciousness is the gateway to mechanisms of access [so has a function]…. Or perhaps P-consciousness and A-P-consciousness amount to
Consciousness science – ways in
(Sperling)
Block suggests: “Here is the description I think is right…: I am P-conscious of all (or almost all…) the letters at once, that is, jointly, and not just as blurry or vague letters, but as specific letters (or at least specific shapes), but I don't have access to all ofQuestions
Is this the only way to interpret the Sperling data? Or the drilling case? Or blindsight?
How can we say anything about P consciousness if the contents of P consciousness are not (necessarily, directly) used in reasoning/action/control?
If we can report them then they are already A conscious.
If you are only P but not A conscious of X, is that really a case of being conscious?
How can we even know about P conscious states?
Does the distinction between P and A consciousness really hold? What is its relation to Chalmer’s
consciousness/awareness distinction?
Does the distinction instead pick out degrees of access?
Questions
Could there really be (or are there) distinctsystems for e.g. perception and consciousness of perception?
How do we even investigate the function of A-consciousness? What criteria do we use to determine when someone is A-conscious ofsomething, and when they are not? (Not always obvious!)
