DOCSLIB.ORG

Consciousness Versus States of Being Conscious

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Consciousness Versus States of Being Conscious Continuing Commentary Commentary on Ned Block (1995). On a confusion about a function of consciousness. BBS 18:227±287. Abstract of the original article: Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different ªconsciousnesses.º Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of ªconsciousnessº based on the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct ªguesses.º They cannot harness this information in the service of action, however, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are both access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness. An example of access-consciousness was criticized by Kinsbourne (1995). Using a distinction similar to without phenomenal consciousness? that proposed by Block, but in a more anatomico-physiologic context, Kinsbourne argues that the ILN can be ªattention-action Joseph E. Bogen coordinatorsº without also being ªsubjectivity pumpsº (p. 168). At Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Southern California, Los one point he suggests that without coordination of attention and Angeles, CA 90033-4620. action ªconsciousness would lapseº; that is, there would be no P without A. His main emphasis is on the possibility that A is Abstract: Both Block and the commentators who accepted his P versus A provided by a different neural basis than P, in which case there distinction readily recognize examples of P without A but not vice versa. As would be the possibility of A without P. Kinsbourne does not, an example of A without P, Block hypothesized a ªzombie,º computa- however, provide examples of A without P. At this point it seems tionally like a human but without subjectivity. This would appear to that we are left with a problem: Are there actual cases of A without describe the disconnected right hemisphere of the split-brain subject, unless one alternatively opts for two parallel mechanisms for P? P? As Block (1995r) put it (p. 277), ªThe relative ease of finding cases of P without A as compared with A without P suggests the Block (1995a) makes a clear conceptual distinction between what distinction is on to something to do with the joints of nature.º He he calls phenomenal consciousness (P) and what he calls access added, ªIf brain damage does not yield cases of A without P, this is consciousness (A). The former (P) he points to by saying that an especially interesting fact given the fantastic wealth of variation ªP-conscious states are experientialº; he gives examples such as in brain-damage cases.º smells, tastes, pains, thoughts, and desires (p. 230). The latter (A) Speaking of brain-damage cases, I would ask, what about split- he describes as a state in which some content is ªpoised for use as a brain humans, with whom I have had a lengthy acquaintance premise in reasoningº and ªpoised for rational control of actionº (Bogen 1993; Bogen & Vogel 1962)? So far as I am aware, no one (p. 231). A can also be ªpoised for rational control of speech,º but has ever denied that: (1) in most of these patients speech is for Block this is not a necessary aspect because he considers produced only by the left hemisphere, (2) the speech is evidence chimps to have A. Indeed, he elsewhere notes that ªvery much that P and A coexist in that hemisphere, and (3) verbal denial of lower animals are A-consciousº (p. 238). information that has been delivered only to the right hemisphere Block is at some pains to consider the possibilities of P without A (and rationally acted upon) reflects the existence of an indepen- and of A without P; in particular, he says, ªIt certainly seems dent capacity in the right hemisphere, that is, an A-consciousness conceptually possible that the neural bases of P-consciousness different from the A-consciousness of the left hemisphere. Does systems and A-consciousness systems are distinctº (p. 233). Block the right hemisphere in that circumstance also possess its own provides some possible examples of P without A (on p. 234 and P-consciousness? (In my scheme, this P is provided by the ILN of p. 244) such as ªbecoming consciousº (acquiring A) of an ongoing the right hemisphere.) Most of us with a personal experience with noise (e.g., a pneumatic drill) some considerable time after one split-brain patients (e.g., Sperry 1974; Zaidel 1978; Zaidel et al. has been ªaware ofº or has been ªexperiencingº it. Although Block 1996) believe that the disconnected right hemisphere also has its is reluctant to accept dreaming as an example of P without A own P-consciousness. The same conclusion has been recently (p. 275), some of us are inclined to agree with Revonsuo (1995) suggested by others (Berlucchi et al. 1995; Corballis 1995). If we that dreaming can be a good example of subjective experience in are wrong, and the right hemisphere of a split-brain patient does the absence of both current perceptual input and behavioral not have a separate P in spite of having a distinctly different A, then output (see also Delacour 1995; ParÂe & LlinÂas 1995). perhaps we have here a readily replicable example of A-conscious- Block suggests a few hypothetical examples of A without P, such ness without P-consciousness. as a ªzombieº that is computationally identical to a person but without any subjectivity. He concludes ªI don't know whether there are any actual cases of A-consciousness without P-conscious- Consciousness by the lights of logic ness, but I hope I have illustrated their conceptual possibilityº and commonsense (p. 233). If there can be A without P as well as P without A, we should Selmer Bringsjord probably conclude that they have distinct neural bases. However, Department of Philosophy, Psychology and Cognitive Science, Department if there can be P without A but there cannot be A without P (that is, of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180. A entails P), then there could be one neural mechanism which in selmer6rpi.edu; www.rpi.edu/,brings the case of P without A is temporarily disconnected either from action or from ideation or both. Abstract: I urge return by the lights of logic and commonsense to a dia- lectical tabula rasa ± according to which: (1) consciousness, in the ordinary In my recent proposal (Bogen 1995a; 1995b) that the intra- pre-analytic sense of the term, is identified with P-consciousness, and laminar nuclei (ILN) of a thalamus provide a cerebral hemisphere ªA-consciousnessº is supplanted by suitably configured terms from its Block- with both subjectivity and access to action and/or thought, it was ian definition; (2) the supposedly fallacious Searlean argument for the view explicitly assumed that a single mechanism provides both P and A that a function of P-consciousness is to allow flexible and creative cognition as well as providing, on some occasions, only P. This assumption is enthymematic and, when charitably specified, quite formidable. 144 BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1997) 20:1 Continuing Commentary Block's (1995t) paper, according to Warren (1995), ªadds its own confusion to [the] difficult and dismal topic [of consciousness] (39) When you add together, for each professor (and there are n (p. 270).º Warren proceeds to claim that the terms at the heart of of them), the number of sportcoats owned, and then divide the consciousness dialectic are obscure and to prescribe, there- by n, the result is 5. fore, that the topic should simply no longer be an object of scientific scrutiny. While Warren's view is easily refuted (if the Is there really, out there in the world, this thing Block calls view were correct, then given the obscurity of ªproofº that reigned ªA-consciousnessº? I don't think so. In fact, all his talk of this vaporous concept is easily translated away in the manner of (3) to from Euclid to Frege, following Warren's prescription would have 9 eventuated in a world without classical mathematics!), his attitude, (3 ). Consider, for example, Block's assertion (p. 275) about I submit, is seductive ± because, let's face it, the commentary to prosopagnosia: this point certainly at least appears to be a dark cacophony, with (4) A prosopagnosiac ªlacks A-consciousness of the information consensus, or even near-consensus, nowhere to be sensed, let about the identity of the person.º alone seen. The antidote to Warren's despair is to return by the lights of logic and commonsense to a dialectical tabula rasa ± Sentence (4), courtesy of the definition of A-consciousness Block according to which: (1) consciousness, in the ordinary preanalytic provides, is elliptical for something like sense of the term, is identified with P-consciousness, and ªA- (49) A prosopagnosiac is afflicted by certain failures in the consciousnessº is supplanted by suitably configured terms from its processing of information involved in representing and Blockian definition; (2) the supposedly fallacious Searlean argu- reasoning about faces. ment for the view that a function of P-consciousness is to allow flexible and creative cognition is enthymematic and, when charita- Who needs A-consciousness? Without it, and with some scientific bly specified, quite formidable.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • What Is Wrong with the No-Report Paradigm and How to Fix It Ned Block New York University Correspondence: [email protected]
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PhilPapers Forthcoming in Trends in Cognitive Sciences What is wrong with the no-report paradigm and how to fix it Ned Block New York University Correspondence: [email protected] Key words: consciousness, perception, rivalry, frontal, global workspace, higher order Abstract Is consciousness based in prefrontal circuits involved in cognitive processes like thought, reasoning, and memory or, alternatively, is it based in sensory areas in the back of the neocortex? The no-report paradigm has been crucial to this debate because it aims to separate the neural basis of the cognitive processes underlying post-perceptual decision and report from the neural basis of conscious perception itself. However, the no-report paradigm is problematic because, even in the absence of report, subjects might engage in post-perceptual cognitive processing. Therefore, to isolate the neural basis of consciousness, a no-cognition paradigm is needed. Here, I describe a no-cognition approach to binocular rivalry and outline how this approach can help resolve debates about the neural basis of consciousness. Acknowledgement: Thanks to Jan Brascamp, Susan Carey, Thomas Carlson, David Carmel, David Chalmers, Christof Koch, Hakwan Lau, Matthias Michel, Michael Pitts, Dawid Potgieter and Giulio Tononi for comments on an earlier version. What is the Neural Basis of Consciousness? In recent years the scientific study of consciousness (see Glossary) has focused on finding the neural basis of consciousness in the brain. There are many theories of the neural basis of consciousness, but in broad strokes theories tend to divide on whether consciousness is rooted in the ‘front’ or the ‘back’ of the brain.
    [Show full text]
  • Consciousness, Philosophical Issues About Ned Block New York University I
    To appear in The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science Consciousness, Philosophical Issues about Ned Block New York University I. The Hard Problem There are a number of different matters that come under the heading of ‘consciousness’. One of them is phenomenality, the feeling of say a sensation of red or a pain, that is what it is like to have such a sensation or other experience. Another is reflection on phenomenality. Imagine two infants, both of which have pain, but only one of which has a thought about that pain. Both would have phenomenal states, but only the latter would have a state of reflexive consciousness. This entry will start with phenomenality, moving later to reflexivity and then to one other kind of consciousness. The Hard Problem of consciousness is how to explain a state of consciousness in terms of its neurological basis. If neural state N is the neural basis of the sensation of red, why is N the basis of that experience rather than some other experience or none at all? Chalmers (1996) distinguishes between the Hard Problem and “easy” problems that concern the function of consciousness. The Hard Problem (though not under that name) was identified by Nagel (1974) and further analyzed in Levine (1983). There are two reasons for thinking that the Hard Problem has no solution. 1. Actual Failure. In fact, no one has been able to think of even a highly speculative answer. 2. Principled Failure. The materials we have available seem ill suited to providing an answer. As Nagel says, an answer to this question would seem to require an objective account that necessarily leaves out the subjectivity of what it is trying to explain.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mystery of David Chalmers
    Daniel C. Dennett The Mystery of David Chalmers 1. Sounding the Alarm ‘The Singularity’ is a remarkable text, in ways that many readers may not appreciate. It is written in an admirably forthright and clear style, and is beautifully organized, gradually introducing its readers to the issues, sorting them carefully, dealing with them all fairly and with impressive scholarship, and presenting the whole as an exercise of sweet reasonableness, which in fact it is. But it is also a mystery story of sorts, a cunningly devised intellectual trap, a baffling puzzle that yields its solution — if that is what it is (and that is part of the mystery) — only at the very end. It is like a ‘well made play’ in which every word by every character counts, retrospectively, for something. Agatha Christie never concocted a tighter funnel of implications and suggestions. Bravo, Dave. Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 2013 So what is going on in this essay? It purports to be about the pros- pects of the Singularity, and since I can count on readers of my essay For personal use only -- not for reproduction to have read Chalmers, I needn’t waste so much as a sentence on what that is or might be. See Chalmers (2010). I confess that I was initially repelled by the prospect of writing a commentary on this essay since I have heretofore viewed the Singularity as a dismal topic, involving reflections on a technological fantasy so far removed from actuality as to be an indulgence best resisted. Life is short, and there are many serious problems to think about.
    [Show full text]
  • Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology
    MIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, X (1986) Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology NED BLOCK eaning is notoriously vague. So, it should not be surprising that se- Mmanticists (those who study meaning) have had somewhat different purposes in mind, and thus have sharpened the ordinary concept of meaning in somewhat different ways. It is a curious and unfortunate fact that semanti- cists typically tell us little about what aspects of meaning they are and are not attempting to deal with. One is given little guidance as to what extent “rival” research programs actually disagree. My purpose here is to advocate an approach to semantics relevant to the foundations of psychology, or, rather, one approach to one branch of psychology, namely cognitive science. I shall be tallung in terms of some of the leading ideas of cognitive science, most importantly the representational theory of mind, aspects of which will be sketched as they become relevant.’ The representalist doctrine that my argument depends on is that thoughts are structured entities. I know this will be a sticking point for some readers, so I will say a bit more about what this comes to, and I will compare my position with related positions that reject it. My strategy will be to begin with some desiderata. These desiderata vary along many dimensions: how central they are to meaning, how psycho- logically oriented they are, how controversial they are. I will argue that one approach to semantics (not to keep you in suspense-conceptual role seman- tics) promises to handle such desiderata better than the others that I know about.
    [Show full text]
  • Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh Between Psychology and Neuroscience
    BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2007) 30, 481–548 Printed in the United States of America doi: 10.1017/S0140525X07002786 Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience Ned Block Department of Philosophy, New York University, New York, NY 10003 [email protected] Abstract: How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: Find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases – when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their authority – and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: Do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is “Yes,” then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is “Yes”? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! This target article argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. I argue that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if we assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified (other things being equal) by the explanations it allows.
    [Show full text]
  • Seeing Consciousness Through the Lens of Memory
    ll Magazine infected rhesus macaques. bioRxiv https://doi. what the experience is about, for org/10.1101/2020.03.13.990226. My Word 17. McCray Jr., P.B., Pewe, L., Wohlford-Lenane, C., example, an apple or a snake. Hickey, M., Manzel, L., Shi, L., Netland, J., Seeing First-order theories, such as Jia, H.P., Halabi, C., Sigmund, C.D., et al. recurrent processing theory [2,3], posit (2007). Lethal infection of K18-hACE2 mice infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome consciousness that consciousness originates in brain coronavirus. J. Virol. 81, 813–821. regions specialized in the processing 18. Docherty, A.B., Harrison, E.M., Green, C.A., through the lens of Hardwick, H.E., Pius, R., Norman, L., of a given kind of information. For Holden, K.A., Read, J.M., Dondelinger, F., memory perceptual states of consciousness, Carson, G., et al. (2020). Features of 20,133 these include, for instance, visual UK patients in hospital with covid-19 using the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol: or auditory cortices. For emotions prospective observational cohort study. BMJ Joseph E. LeDoux1,2,3,* like fear, subcortical areas such as 369, m1985. and Hakwan Lau4,5 19. Mao, L., Jin, H., Wang, M., Hu, Y., Chen, S., the amygdala have been proposed He, Q., Chang, J., Hong, C., Zhou, Y., Wang, D., to be a fi rst-order locus [4]. In fi rst- et al. (2020). Neurologic manifestations of We humans have long thought of order theories, the phenomenal feel hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in Wuhan, China. JAMA Neurol.
    [Show full text]
  • Mental Paint Ned Block New York University the Greatest Chasm In
    In Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge edited by Martin Hahn and Bjorn Ramberg, MIT Press, 2003 Mental Paint Ned Block New York University The greatest chasm in the philosophy of mind--maybe even all of philosophy-- divides two perspectives on consciousness. The two perspectives differ on whether there is anything in the phenomenal character of conscious experience that goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive and the functional. A convenient terminological handle on the dispute is whether there are “qualia”, or qualitative properties of conscious experience. Those who think that the phenomenal character of conscious experience goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive and the functional believe in qualia.1 The debates about qualia have recently focused on the notion of representation, with issues about functionalism always in the background. All can agree that there are representational contents of thoughts, for example the representational content that virtue is its own reward. And friends of qualia can agree that experiences at least sometimes have representational content too, e.g. that something red and round occludes something blue and square. The recent focus of disagreement is on whether the phenomenal character of experience is exhausted by such representational contents. I say no. Don’t get me wrong. I think that sensations--almost always--perhaps even always--have representational content in addition to their phenomenal character. What’s more, I think that it is often the phenomenal character itself that has the representational content. What I deny is that representational content is all there is to phenomenal character. I insist that phenomenal character outruns representational content.
    [Show full text]
  • 52928593.Pdf
    TURING TEST AND CONVERSATION A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION SCIENCE AND THE INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE OF BILKENT UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE By Ayşe Pınar Saygın July, 1999 I' ^ ΐ> i' н Ш с έ ^ · Η 11 I certify that I have read this thesis and that in niy opin­ ion it is fully adequate, in scope and in qiuility, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science. Asst. Prof. Dr. Ilyas (.JiyeklifPrincipal Advisor) I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opin­ ion it is fully adequate, in scope and in cpiality, as ci thesis for the degree of Master of Science. Asst. Prof. Dr. Bilge Say I certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opin­ ion it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, cis a thesis for the degree of Master of Science. Davenport Approved tor the Institute of Engineering and Science: Prof. Dr. Mehinet Baray, Director of Insj^t^i of Engineering and Science Ill ABSTRACT TURING TEST AND CONVERSATION Ayşe Pınar Saygın M.S. in Computer Engineering and Information Science Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ilyas Çiçekli July, 1999 The Turing Test is one of the most disputed topics in Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. It has been proposed 50 years ago, as a method to determine whether machines can think or not. It embodies important philosophical issues, as well as computational ones. Moreover, be­ cause of its characteristics, it requires interdisciplinary attention.
    [Show full text]
  • Wittgenstein and Qualia1
    Philosophical Perspectives, 21, Philosophy of Mind, 2007 WITTGENSTEIN AND QUALIA1 Ned Block New York University (Wittgenstein, 1968) endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. This paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that Wittgenstein endorsed (the “innocuous” inverted spectrum hypothesis) is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a Wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he rejected (the “dangerous” kind). The danger of the dangerous kind is that it provides an argument for qualia, where qualia are (for the purposes of this paper) contents of experiential states which cannot be fully captured in natural language. I will pinpoint the difference between the innocuous and dangerous scenarios that matters for the argument for qualia, give arguments in favor of the coherence and possibility of the dangerous scenario, and try to show that some standard arguments against inverted spectra are ineffective against the version of the dangerous scenario I will be advocating. The leading idea of the paper is that an argument for qualia based on spectrum inversion does not require that the inversion be behaviorally indistinguishable. At one crucial point, I will rely on a less controversial version of an argument I gave in Block (1999). Wittgenstein’s views provide a convenient starting point for a paper that is much more about qualia than about Wittgenstein. 1. Introduction The content of an experiential state can often be described in public language partly in terms of qualities of objects that bear some salient relation to the state, for example, “looks red” or “feels like sandpaper” or “smells rotten”, but it is the contention of this paper that public language terms including terms for such properties of objects do not fully capture the contents.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates
    INTRODUCTION The Many Faces of Consciousness: A Field Guide Guven Gfizeldere There is perhaps no other phenomenon besides This testimonial was one of the many unsettling consciousness that is so familiar to each of us and personal accounts of "becoming conscious" under yet has been so elusive to any systematic study, general anesthesia, gathered in response to the philosophical or scientific. In thinking about con- following advertisement, which appeared in four sciousness, the puzzlement one often finds oneself national newspapers in Great Britain in 1984: in is rather like St. Augustine's riddle in his con- templations about the nature of time: When no SURGERY: Have you ever been conscious dur- one asked him, he knew what it was; being asked, ing a surgical operation when you were supposed however, he no longer did. (Augustine of Hippo to be anaesthesized? A medical research team 1961: Book 11.) would like an account of your experiences. What is at the heart of this puzzlement? Is there Write in confidence. a genuine difficulty that underlies it? What are the The goal of this advertisement was to gather specific issues that comprise the problem of con- firsthand accounts of gaining consciousness under sciousness? (Is there really a "the problem of general anesthesia, in order to investigate the consciousness"?) And are we facing a phenom- truth of a number of patients' discomforting post- enon the understanding of which lies forever be- surgery reports and to provide legal guidance for yond our intellectual capacities? These are the the accumulating court cases.2 questions that I will pursue below.
    [Show full text]
  • Hilary Putnam (1926–2016): a Lifetime Quest to Understand the Relationship Between Mind, Language, and Reality
    c 2016 Imprint Academic Mind & Matter Vol. 14(1), pp. 87{95 Hilary Putnam (1926{2016): A Lifetime Quest to Understand the Relationship between Mind, Language, and Reality David Leech Anderson Department of Philosophy Illinois State University, Normal, USA Hilary Putnam was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. His peers have called him \one of the finest minds I've ever encountered" (Noam Chomsky) and \one of the greatest philosophers this nation has ever produced" (Martha Nussbaum). Standard obituaries covering his \life and times" are available in the mass media.1 This essay 1See, e.g., the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/arts/hilary- putnam-giant-of-modern-philosophy-dies-at-89.html), the Guardian (www. theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/14/hilary-putnam-obituary), or the Huffington 88 Anderson will focus exclusively on the legacy he has left from his published works and from the way he has modeled a philosopher's life. Hilary Putnam was a towering figure in philosophy of language, phi- losophy of mind, and in metaphysics, and special attention will be paid (below) to those contributions. His influence, however, extends well be- yond those boundaries. He has published works in dozens of different research areas, of which the following is only a small sample. Early in his career he contributed (with Martin Davis, Yuri Matiyasevich, and Julia Robinson) to the solution of Hilbert's 10th problem, a major result in mathematics which, together with other related accomplishments, would have warranted an appointment in a mathematics department. While his central focus was not ethics and political philosophy he advanced a sus- tained attack on the fact-value distinction { a central presupposition of logical positivism and a position that he thought continued to influence research in many areas to deleterious effect.
    [Show full text]
  • Why and How Does Consciousness Seem the Way It Seems? Daniel C
    Why and How Does Consciousness Seem the Way it Seems? Daniel C. Dennett Are-expression of some of the troublesome features of my oft-caricatured theory of Author consciousness, with new emphases, brings out the strengths of the view and shows how it comports with and anticipates the recent introduction of Bayesian ap- Daniel C. Dennett proaches to cognitive science. daniel.dennett$tufts.edu Keywords #ufts %niversity Bayes | Consciousness | Hume | !nversion | "ualia | #ransduction &edford, &A, %.'.A. Commentator David Ba(ler davidhbassler$gmail.com )ohannes *utenberg-Universit+t &ain,, *ermany -ditors #homas &et,inger met,inger $uni-main,.de )ohannes *utenberg-Universit+t &ain,, *ermany )ennifer &. .indt /ennifer.windt$monash.edu &onash %niversity &elbourne, Australia 1 Introduction People are often baffled by my theory of con- and 2esse Prin/ '()+(,, 3now better, and offer sciousness, which seems to them to be summed theories that share important features with up neatly in the paradoxical claim that con- mine. toyed with the idea of tryin! to re-offer sciousness is an illusion. How could that be? my theory in terms that would signal the areas Whose illusion? And would it not be a con- of agreement and disagreement with these wel- scious illusion? What a hopeless view! n a bet- come allies, but again, life is short, and have ter world, the principle of charity would set in found that tas3 simply too much hard work. 4o and they would realise that probably had with apologies, "m goin! to restate my position somethin! rather less daft in mind, but life is with a few new—or at least newly emphasi/ed short, and we"ll have one less difficult and coun- 5wrin3les, and let them tell us where we agree terintuitive theory to worry about if we just dis- and disagree.
    [Show full text]