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The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness Position Paper The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness Position paper This essay explains my version of an eliminativist approach to understanding conscious- ness. It suggests that we stop thinking in terms of "conscious" and "unconscious" and in- stead look at physical systems for what they are and what they can do. This perspective dis- solves some biases in our usual perspective and shows us that the world is not composed of conscious minds moving through unconscious matter, but rather, the world is a unified whole, with some sub-processes being more fancy and self-reflective than others. I think eliminativism should be combined with more intuitive understandings of consciousness to ensure that its moral applications stay on the right track. 12 December 2015 Position paper by the Eective Altruism Foundation. Preferred citation: Tomasik, B. (2006). The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness. Position paper by the Eective Altruism Foundation (2): 1-9. First published 12 December 2015. www.longtermrisk.org www.ea-stiung.org Contents Introduction.............................1 Motivating eliminativism....................2 Thinking physically........................3 Eliminativist sentience valuation..............3 Living in zombieland.......................4 Why this discussion matters..................4 Does eliminativism eliminate empathy?.........5 The subjective and objective need each other.....5 Eliminativism and panpsychism...............6 Denying consciousness altogether.............6 Does eliminativism explain phenomenology?......7 Bibliography............................9 Brian Tomasik, Researcher, Center on Long-Term Risk The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness Introduction "[Qualia] have seemed to be very significant analogy of élan vital. We can pursue any of the following properties to some theorists because they options with it: have seemed to provide an insurmountable and unavoidable stumbling block to func- • reduce élan vital by saying that it is the properties tionalism, or more broadly, to materialism, that define life or more broadly still, to any purely ’third- • eliminate élan vital as an imprecise concept person’ objective viewpoint or approach to the world (Nagel, 1986). Theorists of the • adopt a kind of "pan-vitalism" (or hylozoism) the- contrary persuasion have patiently and inge- ory according to which everything in the universe niously knocked down all the arguments, and has traces of life – aer all, even atoms show "be- said most of the right things, but they have haviors" in response to stimuli, move toward equi- made a tactical error, I am claiming, of say- librium, etc. ing in one way or another: ’We theorists can A similar situation obtains with respect to consciousness. handle those qualia you talk about just fine; In "Consciousness and its Place in Nature", David we will show that you are just slightly in error Chalmers recognizes that functionalist-style reductionism about the nature of qualia.’ What they ought and eliminativism are ultimately the same [4]: to have said is: ’What qualia?’" [1] My views on consciousness are sometimes confusing to Type-A materialism sometimes takes the form readers, so I try to explain them in dierent ways using dif- of eliminativism, holding that consciousness ferent language. I myself also try to imagine the situation does not exist, and that there are no phe- from dierent angles. Three main perspectives that I’ve nomenal truths. It sometimes takes the form advanced are of analytic functionalism or logical behavior- ism, holding that consciousness exists, where • reductionism [2] (mainly with a functionalist [3] fla- the concept of "consciousness" is defined in vor): consciousness is certain algorithms that physi- wholly functional or behavioral terms (e.g., cal processes perform to varying degrees where to be conscious might be to have cer- • eliminativism: the focus of the current essay tain sorts of access to information, and/or cer- tain sorts of dispositions to make verbal re- • panpsychism: consciousness is intrinsic to compu- ports). For our purposes, the dierence be- tation, having dierent flavors for dierent compu- tween these two views can be seen as termi- tational systems. nological. Pete Mandik has a nice video explaining the distinction be- tween reductionism and eliminativism. Chalmers classifies panpsychism as a Type-F monist That said, I think all three of these approaches are sub- view, but I think that functionalist panpsychism is a po- stantively the same, and they dier mainly in the words etic way of expressing a type-A materialism. That which they use and the imagery they evoke. These dierences panpsychism says is fundamental to computation is not a concrete may have practical consequences insofar our moral intu- thing that could conceivably not be present but is itions depend on how we think about consciousness, but more a way of describing how the rhythms of physics (nec- what the viewpoints actually say about the world is iden- essarily) seem to us. tical in each case. To make this clear, consider the classic The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness Motivating eliminativism don’t deny the reality of conscious experi- ence, I grant that conscious experience has Daniel Dennett is oen charged with denying conscious- properties. I grant moreover that each per- ness. Some critics of his book Consciousness Explained son’s states of consciousness have properties suggest that its title is missing a word, and it should actu- in virtue of which those states have the expe- ally be called Consciousness Explained Away [5]. One reply riential content that they do. That is to say, to this allegation is that consciousness is being explained, whenever someone experiences something as but it’s just not what people thought it was. But I sup- being one way rather than another, this is true pose another possible response is to say, "Okay, what if I in virtue of some property of something hap- did explain consciousness away? What would follow from pening in them at the time, but these prop- that?" I can imagine an Internet meme of Morpheus say- erties are so unlike the properties tradition- ing: "What if I told you that we should get rid of the idea of ally imputed to consciousness that it would ’consciousness’?" be grossly misleading to call any of them the Maybe "consciousness" is a word with so much meta- long-sought qualia. physical baggage and philosophical confusion that it Keith Frankish: would be best to stop using it. Marvin Minsky thinks so and adds: I don’t think that consciousness is an illusion [...]. The question is what’s involved in having now that we know that the brain has [...] hun- those experiences and those sensations. And dreds of dierent kinds of machinery linked I think it does [...] beg the question to say that in various ways that we don’t understand, it it involves having states with qualia. would be a wonderful coincidence if any of the words of common-sense psychology actually Eliminativists remind us that our intuitions about science described anything that’s clearly separate, [...] are not well refined. It’s commonly the case that naive no- like "rational" and "emotional" [as] a typical tions of physics, biology, and other sciences need to be re- dumbed-down distinction that people use. placed by more correct, if less intuitive, understandings. Why should it be dierent in the case of consciousness? "Consciousness" does actually point to some helpful dis- People may feel as though they’re experts on subjectivity tinctions even given a reductionist world view – just as the because they are conscious, but they are just one of many contrast between rational and emotional thinking does ac- conscious minds in the universe. I don’t see how this posi- tually have some grounding in neuroscience. But "con- tion qualifies one as an expert on consciousness any more sciousness" can point to a lot of distinctions at once de- than knowing your way around your house qualifies you pending on what the speaker has in mind. Maybe we as an expert on physical space in the galaxy. In any case, should embrace the eliminativist program and replace the parts of our brains that talk don’t even have clear un- "consciousness" with more precise alternative words. derstanding of much of what goes on in our own heads. To be clear, my version of eliminativism does not say In The Scientific Outlook (1931), Bertrand Russell wrote: that consciousness doesn’t exist. Pace Galen Strawson, it Ordinary language is totally unsuited for ex- does not "deny the existence of the phenomenon whose pressing what physics really asserts, since the existence is more certain than the existence of anything words of everyday life are not suiciently ab- else". Rather, eliminativism says that "consciousness" stract. Only mathematics and mathematical is not the best concept to use when talking about what logic can say as little as the physicist means to minds do. We should replace it with more specific descrip- say. tions of how mental operations work and what they ac- complish. To again give an analogy with élan vital: It’s not Eliezer Yudkowsky remembers that his father that life doesn’t have a sort of vitality to it; it does. Rather, there are more useful and specific ways to talk about life’s said that physics was math and couldn’t even vitality than to invoke the élan vital concept. be talked about without math. He talked Dennett echoes this in "Quining Qualia": about how everyone he met tried to invent their own theory of physics and how annoying Everything real has properties, and since I this was. 2 The Eliminativist Approach to Consciousness In a similar way, I claim we can’t understand subjec- ing about neural operations as "unconscious" or "con- tivity without neuroscience (and physics more generally). scious". Instead, in humans, think about the pathway And while everyone seems to have a pet theory of con- along which neural information travels in order to reach sciousness (including me plenty of times), these can’t sub- your high-level thinking, speech, action, and memory cen- stitute for neuroscience.
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