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. Whatever philosophical problems may be as- The overarching goal of this introduction is to sociated with the term consciousness, it might be provide a field guide (with a particular perspec- thought that it would be a straightforward matter tive) for anyone interested in the history and to specify an operational definition of being con- present status of philosophical issues in the study scious for anesthesiologists to work with. Can of consciousness. Part One is a preliminary over- consciousness simply not be detected on the basis view of the current philosophical positions in the of the patient's being alert and responsive? What literature, as well as a discussion of the unique is in question, after all, is neither the notoriously difficulties inherent in the concept and nature elusive problem of phenomenal experience nor of consciousness. Part Two is an account of the the concept of the evanescent Humean self. study of consciousness in the history of modern A brief look at the anesthesiology literature, psychology. Finally, Part Three is an exposition brimming with terms like real awareness and in- of the mosaic of philosophical puzzles of con- cipient consciousness, quickly proves otherwise. sciousness, as well as an exploration of their in- 1 (Cf. Rosen and Lunn 1987.) If anything, the con- terrelations. sensus is that "with the spectral edge of the EEG [electroencephalogram] or median frequency, or any other processed EEG signal, there does PART ONE not seem to be a clear cut-off, without overlap, CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS between consciousness and unconsciousness" (Vickers 1987, p. 182). The phenomenon of con- The feeling of helplessness was terrifying. I tried to let the sciousness does not have clear-cut boundaries, staff know I was conscious but I couldn't move even a finger or eyelid It was like being held in a vice and grad- and its complex structure does not admit any ually I realized that I was in a situation from which there easy formulations. (See, for instance, the Roche was no way out. I began to feel that breathing was im- Handbook of Differential Diagnosis on "Coma" possible, and I just resigned myself to dying. [1979] and on "Transient Loss of Consciousness" —Patient: Male, aged fifty-four, bronchoscopy, 1978. [1989].) Even if it is in principle possible to invent Giiven Giizeldere Approaching Consciousness

a "consciousness monitor," a device that would in nature, the mysteries of time, space, and gravity— the soul in the same breath, nor does anyone refer I The Puzzle of Consciousness detect the physical signs of the presence of con- We do not yet have the final answers to any of the to language as "that evanescent thing." So it sciousness in a patient, no such technology is questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular seems obvious that consciousness is perceived anywhere in sight, because it is not even known These questions do not have any easy, obvious genetics, and evolutionary theory, but we do know how as special, possibly unique, and not readily ame- to think about them. The mysteries haven't vanished, what exactly is to be measured. answers. Nor is there at present anything that nable to ordinary scientific or philosophical ex- could be regarded as a received view on problems but they have been tamed With consciousness, The root of the problem lies deeper than the planation. of consciousness in the scientific and philosoph- however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness inadequacy of the technology or the lack of suffi- Some take this sense of mystery even further, ical community. Furthermore, it is common to stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the cient data, however. What seems to be critically and this attitude is not at all restricted to the find serious doubts expressed in the literature most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused, lacking is a solid theoretical framework to ground popular press. It is in fact possible to find the about whether there can ever be a complete un- (pp. 21-22) and facilitate the experimental research. For ex- same sentiments expressed in philosophical and derstanding of the phenomenon of consciousness. ample, there is no established consensus, even in Dennett should not be taken as promoting the scientific circles, by those whom Owen Flanagan The gloomy opening lines of Thomas Nagel's the medical field, as to what should count as the sense of mystery, however. After all, his book is (1991) calls the "New Mysterians." For instance, famous essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" criteria of consciousness, so AS to demarcate the entitled Consciousness Explained. Of course, it is Colin McGinn (1989) finds it humanly impossible have become formative for many in thinking domain of the conscious from that of the uncon- hard to say that everyone (or even many) agrees ever to understand "how technicolor phenomen- about consciousness: "Consciousness is what scious or the nonconscious. The problem with with Dennett's conviction. In fact, the general ology can arise from grey soggy matter," and ap- makes the mind-body problem really intract- building a consciousness monitor is not confined sentiment among those who work on conscious- provingly quotes the English biologist Huxley able Without consciousness the mind-body to a lack of sufficiently fine-grained measuring ness (including philosophers, psychologists, and who famously stated: "How it is that anything so instruments; it ultimately has to do with not problem would be much less interesting. With neuroscientists) seems to be on the "puzzled" side. remarkable as a state of consciousness comes knowing where to begin measuring and where to consciousness, it seems hopeless" (Nagel 1974, Moreover, in the wake of a recent rise in inter- about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is just end up with the measured quantities.3 pp. 165-166). est in the study of consciousness, almost each ap- as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when The puzzle of consciousness can be regarded Aladdin rubbed bis lamp" (p. 349).6 Worse, it is not clear whether everyone pearance of consciousness as a subject matter in in various ways, all the way from a supernatural means the same thing by the term consciousness, the popular press has been tagged with some ele- The expression of this sort of puzzlement is mystery that will forever elude naturalist expla- even within the bounds of a single discipline. ment of mystery. For instance, Francis Crick and hardly new. Similar perplexity has been expressed nations, to a natural but extremely complicated There is considerable variation in people's pre- Christof Koch called consciousness the "most by a number of people over the years, especially phenomenon about which we know very little. theoretic intuitions, for instance, regarding the mysterious aspect of the mind-body problem" in since the mid-nineteenth century, with the ad- And some of the time, the blue line that lies in kinds of creatures to which consciousness can be their article that appeared in a special issue of vancement of neurology and neuropsychology 4 between becomes very thin. There are also those attributed. Scientific American titled Mind and Brain (Sep- and the consequently well-grounded conviction who express skepticism about the existence of tember 1992). Discover magazine enlisted con- And in the absence of well-grounded theories, that facts about consciousness must have some consciousness as a real phenomenon or about the sciousness as one of the "ten great unanswered the lack of robust pretheoretical intuitions be- explanatory basis in the facts about the brain. For coherence of its conceptual grounding, as well as questions of science" (November 1992), and comes even more importunate. Consider again instance, in 1874, physicist John Tyndall made others with a much more positive outlook, busily Omni published a special issue on consciousness the case of anesthesia. A person who is totally the following remark: "We can trace the devel- constructing their own accounts of consciousness but titled it "Science and the Soul" (October unresponsive to stimuli can, in one very impor- opment of a nervous system, and correlate with it to solve the puzzle. A brief look at some of the 1993). (Perhaps the rather unusual tide Francis tant sense, be said to have lost consciousness. the parallel phenomena of sensation and thought. representatives of these different positions is in Crick chose for his book that appeared shortly Nonetheless, can she still be said to be conscious We see with undoubting certainty that they go order. afterward was a response to Omni's inquiry: The in another sense—in the sense of passively expe- hand in hand. But we try to soar in a vacuum the Scientific Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the riencing the sensations caused by the stimuli, for moment we seek to comprehend the connection Soul.) Finally, Time magazine, in an issue that instance? Similarly, are we to grant consciousness The Mystery of Consciousness and the between them. An Archimedean fulcrum is here featured consciousness research, put the words to a patient in a vegetative state, even when she Explanatory Gap required which the human mind cannot com- "that evanescent thing called consciousness" on lacks a well-functioning brain stem? Or what mand; and the effort to solve the problem ... is In the opening pages of Consciousness Explained, its cover (July 17,1995). like that of a man trying to lift himself by his own would justify granting consciousness to the 7 patient if she did have a functioning brain stem Daniel Dennett (1991) remarks: Now, no one refers to other biological or psy- waistband" (p. 195). In contemporary literature, chological phenomena in such terms. There is Karl Popper, in a similar vein, finds "the emer- that maintained the autonomic functions of her Human consciousness is just about the last surviving body?5 How many senses of consciousness are never a special magazine issue that pronounces gence of full consciousness ... which seems to be mystery— There have been other great mysteries: the linked to the human brain ... one of the greatest there anyway, and how are we to taxonomize mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life the problem of cell mutation with the question of them? and reproduction, the mystery of the design to be found Giiven Guzeldere Approaching Consciousness

miracles" (Popper and Eccles 1993, p. 129). And established harmony" between the events of the also the skeptics and the naturalists, and to them I The Consciousness Naturalists most recently, McGinn (1989) delivers what he two realms. now turn. considers to be the final verdict on the mind-body More than three centuries after Descartes, Finally, there are those who believe that con- problem: "We have been trying for a long time to John Eccles (1991, pp. 190-191) makes a repeat Skepticism About Consciousness sciousness is a real and perfectly natural phenom- solve the mind-body problem. It has stubbornly attempt, although in neurologically sophisticated enon and that there will remain no mysterious resisted our best efforts. The mystery persists. I dress, by postulating psychons (mental units) as The skeptics among philosophers fundamentally unexplained residue about consciousness in a think the time has come to admit candidly that we counterparts of dendrites in brains, to connect doubt the coherence of the very concept of con- completely naturalist, but surely more advanced cannot solve the mystery" (p. 349). Popper's mental World 2 to physical World 1. sciousness, and the merits of consciousness itself and mature, theoretical framework. Among the There is, however, more than one way to read Another contemporary expression of the view as a phenomenon fit for scientific or philosophical naturalists, however, there is a wide spectrum of assertions about the mystery of consciousness. that defends an antimaterialist framework for investigation. Patricia Churchland, in one of positions representing different levels of con- Accordingly, it is important not to lump together consciousness is given by Robert Adams (1987), her early papers, compares the concept of con- fidence in the success of a naturalist program. For everyone who expresses puzzlement about con- who finds theism theoretically advantageous to sciousness (under a certain reading that she ex- instance, one can straightforwardly distinguish sciousness into the same category. In particular, it materialism in explaining the relation of con- plicates) to such now-defunct concepts as ether, between full-blown naturalists and naturalists-at- is important to pay attention to the following two sciousness to bodily physical states.8 phlogiston, and demonic possession—concepts heart.10 questions: Is the mystery essentially a result of a On the other hand are those who do not cut the that "under the suasion of a variety of empirical- Into the first group fall a number of philos- commitment to a materialist framework? Is the bill of the mystery of consciousness to the pre- cum-theoretical forces... lose their integrity and ophers who have explicitly defended a naturalist mystery essentially inherent in our (lack of) cog- sumed immaterial ontology of consciousness but fall apart" (Churchland 1983, p. 80). framework to explain consciousness, without nitive capacities? rather to our lack of cognitive capacities that In a similar vein, Kathleen Wilkes claims not theoretical reservations. However, some of the As such, these questions constitute an onto- would enable us to understand the nature of only that "science can dispense with the concept full naturalists, most significant among them Paul logical and an epistemic axis, respectively, that the "psychophysical link" between brains and of consciousness and lose thereby none of its Churchland (1988) and Daniel Dennett (1991), cross-cut each other. Not every combination in minds. Tyndall seems to be in this group, and comprehensiveness and explanatory power," but have been charged with trying to do away with the matrix receives equal philosophical attention. so is McGinn, who states that although "we "so too could ordinary language." She then sug- consciousness for the sake of explaining it. Some A negative answer to both questions essentially know that brains are the de facto causal basis of gests that "perhaps 'conscious' is best seen as a others have been more careful not to fall under leaves one out of the circle of those who find consciousness," we have no idea about how "the sort of dummy-term like 'thing', useful [only] for this decree. For instance Owen Flanagan (1992), something mysterious in consciousness, and not water of the physical brain is turned into the wine the flexibility that is assured by its lack of specific who proposes what he calls the natural method— many defend a view that find consciousness mys- of consciousness" (McGinn 1989, p. 349). This content" (Wilkes 1984, pp. 241-242). Along the a triangulated approach for studying conscious- terious in both aspects. Rather, the focus is on is an epistemic rather than ontological problem. same lines Georges Rey goes a step further and ness that combines phenomenology, psychology, views based on an exclusively positive answer to For McGinn, "there is, in reality, nothing mys- suggests that there are "reasons for doubting that and neuroscience—states: "Consciousness exists, one or the other question. terious about how the brain generates con- oneself is conscious and... thinking that nothing and it would be a mistake to eliminate talk of it Those who think that consciousness will re- sciousness," but we human beings are forever is conscious." Consciousness, Rey suggests, "may because it names such a multiplicity of things. main a mystery in a materialist ontology suggest "cognitively closed" to understanding the nature be no more real than the simple soul exorcised by The right attitude is to deliver the concept from that the proper place to pursue investigation is of this process, much the same way the under- Hume" (Rey 1988, p. 6). its ghostly past and provide it with a credible instead an immaterial realm—such as the realm standing of quantum mechanics lies beyond the Notice that this sort of skepticism about con- naturalistic analysis It will be our proudest of the res cogitans for Descartes, or World 2 of cognitive capacities of monkeys.9 sciousness is a very different attitude from any achievement if we can demystify consciousness" mental entities for Karl Popper. This move brings The general difficulty involving consciousness form of "mysterianism." In particular, those who (Flanagan 1995, p. 20). with it a problem perhaps larger than that it was forms a basis for what Joseph Levine (1983,1993) think that consciousness is mysterious are com- Among the naturalists who give accounts of presumed to solve: how to account for the link called the "problem of the explanatory gap." Al- mitted to the existence of some significant phe- consciousness in terms of causal and functional between consciousness in the immaterial realm most everyone agrees that there is indeed some nomenon, however elusive it may be in relation to roles (broadly construed) are Armstrong (1980b, and brains (and bodies) in the material realm. explanatory gap in this area; what is controversial scientific investigation or philosophical analysis. 1993), Lewis (1966, 1972, 1980, 1995), Shoe- Descartes's notorious solution was to postulate is, as I will note later, whether there is just an Consciousness skepticism, on the other hand, maker (1975, 1991, 1994), Lycan (1987, 1997b), the pineal gland as the gatekeeper of interac- epistemic or also an ontological lesson that needs embraces an eliminativist stance: the concept of Van Gulick (1988, 1989, 1993), and Rosenthal tion between the two essentially different kinds to be drawn from it. consciousness is defunct, and the phenomenon it- (1986,1997). of substances. Alternatively, Leibniz chose to In any case, these positions constitute only a self may actually be inexistent, at least so far as it Most recently, Fred Dretske (1995) and Mi- rely on divine intervention to secure a "pre- fraction of the whole dialectical space. There are is construed in the literature that the skeptics are chael Tye (1995) came up with naturalist ac- attacking. counts that explain consciousness in entirely Guven Guzeldere Approaching Consciousness

representational terms. Finally, one can add John I am persuaded of its truth" (Nagel 1965, p. 110). of states of consciousness as such" was adopted to lay out the foundations of a new theory of Searle to this group, who dubs his view "bio- Later he moves to a position he calls "dual aspect and promoted by William James), characterized consciousness: they need not provide a precise logical naturalism": theory"—a position that lies between asserting the phenomenon of consciousness (p. 30). This definition of consciousness since "everyone has falsity of physicalism but remaining short of pos- characterization seems straightforward, common- a rough idea of what is meant by consciousness" The "mystery" of consciousness today is in roughly the tulating nonphysical substances for accounting same shape that the mystery of life was before the de- sensical, and familiar to everyone. So familiar (p. 263). velopment of molecular biology or the mystery of elec- for the ontology of the mind—while admitting that perhaps, as George Stout (1899), another On the other hand, it is not uncommon to come tromagnetism was before Clerk-Maxwell equations. It that "to talk about a dual aspect theory is largely psychologist of the same era, declares in the across statements about consciousness that con- seems mysterious because we do not know how the sys- hand waving" (Nagel 1986, pp. 29-30). So per- opening pages of his Manual of Psychology, no vey a conviction opposite to those mentioned tem of neurophysiology/consciousness works, and an haps the early Nagel was a naturalist-at-heart, precise definition is necessary, or even possible: above: that not only is there no clear and gen- adequate knowledge of how it works would remove the and now it is more accurate to characterize him as "What is consciousness? Properly speaking, erally accepted definition, but we are not even mystery [TJhere has been no question of "natural- a half-hearted-naturalist. In either case, Nagel's definition is impossible. Everybody knows what in possession of a stable pretheoretical conception izing consciousness"; it is already completely natural. position seems, at least fundamentally, some- consciousness is because everybody is conscious" of consciousness. And this view, too, has been (Searle 1992, p. 102,93, respectively) where in the naturalist camp, despite the skeptical (p. 7). Similarly, William James never attempts around for quite a while, as expressed by Edward and pessimistic undertones that make him some- to give a definition of consciousness anywhere in Despite Searle's fully naturalist convictions, his Titchener (1915) who cites two British psycholo- his two-volume work, Principles of Psychology views have, as I will point out later, significant times look closer to the mysterians or skeptics. gists, Alexander Bain and James Ward, of the late (1950a, 1950b). This is not because James had no disagreements with those of the above on many To recapitulate: It is noteworthy that the spec- nineteenth century: "'Consciousness,' says Pro- interest in, or nothing to say on, consciousness; other (relevant) points. Nonetheless, his position trum of disagreements ranges over not only fessor Ward, 'is the vaguest, most protean, and on the contrary, many of the chapters in his two also differs from a position that I call naturalism- particular accounts of consciousness but, more most treacherous of psychological terms'; and volumes are about consciousness—its under- at-heart. fundamentally, whether any satisfactory natural- Bain, writing in 1880; distinguished no less than pinnings in the nervous system, its function in thirteen meanings of the word; he could find more Naturalists-at-heart are those who openly feel istic explanation of consciousness can in principle be given. Part of this disagreement owes, no evolution, its streamlike phenomenology, and so today" (pp. 323-324). the pull of naturalism, while not quite being able on. Rather, according to James, consciousness doubt, to the difficulty in the nature of the phe- Unfortunately, there is no hope of receiving to find a satisfactory place for consciousness was a phenomenon too familiar to be given a def- nomenon of consciousness. But there is also a part help from antonyms, either. Here is the entry for in a naturalist framework. For example, Levine inition. James (1950a) was convinced that every- that stems from a conceptual disarray surrounding "unconscious" in a psychology dictionary: "It is (1983, 1993), who thinks that the problem of ex- one took themselves to be possessors of conscious the notion of consciousness. It is thus instructive said that there are no less than 39 distinct mean- planatory gap poses ultimately no ontological states that were accessible by introspection, and to examine these two dimensions that contribute ings of 'unconscious'; it is certain that no author problems for materialism, nonetheless expresses he regarded this belief as "the most fundamental to the puzzle of consciousness separately. limits himself consistently to one. And nearly all the following troubled sentiments: "The absent of all the postulates of Psychology." In his refusal meanings are closely linked to debatable theories. and inverted qualia hypotheses are thought ex- to discuss this postulate any further, James adds Any user of the term therefore risks suggesting periments which give concrete expression to what that he would "discard all curious inquiries about H Approaching Consciousness: A Multitude of agreement with theories he may deplore" (En- I will call, following the Churchlands, the 'pro- its certainty as too metaphysical" for the scope of Difficulties glish and English 1958). Finally, Julian Jaynes qualia' intuition. This is the intuition that there is his book (p. 185). something special about conscious mental life (1976) rhetorically asks: "This consciousness that What we are when we are awake, as contrasted with that makes it inexplicable within the theoretical This somewhat peculiar "all-too-familiar a is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet what we are when we sink into a profound and perfectly nothing at all—what is it?" (p. 1). framework of functionalism, and, more generally, dreamless sleep or receive an overpowering blow upon phenomenon" attitude toward consciousness has materialism" (Levine 1988, p. 272). Short of dis- the head—that it is to be conscious. What we are Jess indeed been quite common among many other Moreover, not only is there no consensus on believing materialism, Levine finds it difficult to and less, as we sink gradually down into dreamless prominent investigators of consciousness. Sig- what the term consciousness denotes, but neither place consciousness in a naturalist framework. sleep, or as we swoon slowly away: and what we are mund Freud (1964), for instance, supports Stout's is it immediately clear if there actually is a single, Perhaps the most eloquent proponent of this more and more, as the noise of the crowd outside tardily and James's convictions in his introductory lec- well-defined "the problem of consciousness" position is Thomas Nagel, possibly more so in his arouses us from our after-dinner nap, or as we come out tures on psychoanalysis: "What is meant by con- within disciplinary (let alone across disciplinary) of the midnight darkness of the typhoid fever crisis— sciousness we need not discuss; it is beyond all boundaries. Perhaps the trouble lies not so much earlier writings than his later work. In one of his that it is to become conscious. earlier works, Nagel examines and rejects "the doubt" (p. 70). Closer to our times, neuroscientist in the ill definition of the question, but in the fact reasons for believing that physicalism cannot This is how George Trumbull Ladd (1909), Francis Crick and Christof Koch (1990) endorse that what passes under the term consciousness as possibly be true" and concludes: "My attitude noted American psychologist (whose definition of the same line in the opening paragraphs of their an all too familiar, single, unified notion may be a toward physicalism [is that it] repels me although psychology as the "description and explanation article, "Towards a Neurobiological Theory of tangled amalgam of several different concepts, Consciousness," even though they are attempting each inflicted with its own separate problems. Guven Guzeldere Approaching Consciousness

What exactly, for example, is the problem of proposition that "maybe we should ban the word unabridged second edition), for example, gives transitive and intransitive senses of con- consciousness in philosophy, in psychology, and for a decade or two until we can develop more eight definitions of "consciousness," and twelve sciousness. He calls these two senses "creature in the neurosciences? Are philosophers concerned precise terms for the several uses which 'con- definitions of "conscious." For the purposes of consciousness" and "state consciousness," re- with the same problem, or set of problems, sciousness' now obscures." Nonetheless, he ulti- this chapter, the eight OED entries for "con- spectively. In taking consciousness as a property as psychologists and neuroscientists who work mately decides against it: "Despite all its faults, sciousness" can be divided roughly into two of organisms one can talk about a person's being on consciousness? Whereas Thomas Natsoulas however, the term would be sorely missed; it groups. On the one hand, there is a largely social conscious in the sense of being awake and alert, as (1992), a psychologist, questions: "Is conscious- refers to something immediately obvious and aspect of the term consciousness: joint or mutual opposed to being in a transient state of no con- ness what psychologists actually examine?" familiar to anyone capable of understanding a knowledge shared by a community of people. sciousness, in a deep coma, or in non-REM sleep. (p. 363), Kathleen Wilkes (1988), a philosopher, ban against it" (p. 25)." This was indeed the earliest sense of conscious- In another vein, one can ask of a bat, or a spider, ness, derived from the Latin term conscius. *2 It is or a stickleback, or perhaps a robot if it is gives the following advice: "Just as psychologists In the end, I find myself in agreement with this sense of consciousness that is used in talking conscious. All of this has to do with creature do not study 'mind' per se, so they need not Miller's positive conclusion. It is historically ac- about "class consciousness" in Marxist thought, consciousness. In addition, it makes sense to talk bother with consciousness [because] in all the curate to note that consciousness as a phenom- or that appears in titles like Gerda Lerner's recent about whether a particular mental state is con- contexts in which it tends to be deployed, the term enon in need of not only explanation, but also book, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness scious. This is not quite the same as someone's 'conscious' and its cognates are, for scientific definition, has persistently kept resurfacing. It (1993). being conscious. The creature sense of conscious- purposes, both "unhelpful and unnecessary" (pp. also seems reasonable to think that further ness denotes an overall state one is in; the other 38-9). attempts to provide carefully constructed con- On the other hand, consciousness has a largely classifies one's (mental) states as of one type or ceptual tools could only help the situation, pro- psychological (mental) sense which relates to in- An even more pessimistic view is enunciated by another. Further, a state that is not conscious can Stuart Sutherland (1995) under the entry "con- viding a common platform of interaction among dividuals, rather than groups, with no particu- 13 be among those that in principle cannot become all who choose consciousness as their object of larly ethical or political overtones. This sense of sciousness" in his International Dictionary of conscious (e.g., certain computational states study. This is not to say that it is not crucial to consciousness, too, can be subdivided into two Psychology: postulated by cognitive psychology), or those that proceed cautiously to steer clear of conceptual meanings—it means either "the state or faculty of can be made conscious only by such specific CONSCIOUSNESS: The having of perceptions, thoughts, dead ends, as well as to make sure that one does being conscious, as a condition and concomitant methods as Freudian psychoanalysis. In any case, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define not fall into the trap of reinventing the wheel of of all thought, feeling, and volition" or "the state this sense of consciousness which functions as a except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of consciousness over and over. After all, if we hope of being conscious, regarded as the normal con- type-identifier for mental states is what I have in what consciousness means Consciousness is a fasci- that anything toward a better understanding of dition of healthy waking life" (OED). The former nating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to mind by state consciousness.15 (Another impor- consciousness will come out of the joint efforts of sense is in accord with Descartes's usage of specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. tant distinction is that of characterizing creature different disciplines, it is of utmost importance to "consciousness," but it is more closely associated Nothing worth reading has been written about it. (p. 95) or state consciousness in causal versus phenom- minimize crosstalk and make sure that common with, if it does not originate from, Locke's An enal terms. This distinction will be introduced in Why are there such glaring polarities? Why is terms actually point to the same referents. As a Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It is the next section, and used recurrently throughout consciousness characterized both as a phenom- result, it seems even more imperative to look for also this sense of consciousness that bears an in- the chapter.) enon too familiar to require further explanation, and try to delineate the specific conceptions and tentional component, inherent in the intentional as well as a source of obscurity that remains typi- aspects of consciousness under which the different states it subserves, leading to the transitive usage: In the rest of this discussion, I will largely put cally recalcitrant to systematic investigation by problems arise. The next section is a brief attempt "consciousness of." The latter is the intransitive aside the social conception of consciousness and those who work largely within the same para- to address conceptual issues along these lines, usage of "consciousness," something more basic proceed with the psychological conception. This digm? There is something uniquely peculiar here. before turning to the epistemological and onto- than, or perhaps a necessary constituent of the move approximately halves the size of the liter- Is it the phenomenon of consciousness that is logical difficulties that arise from the nature of former, unless one wants to insist that all con- ature to be examined; yet there is still plenty that more puzzling, one sometimes wonders, or the consciousness. sciousness is consciousness of. The distinction needs teasing apart and sorting out.16 magnitude of the puzzlement itself and the theo- between the transitive and the intransitive senses retical dissonance surrounding consciousness? of the psychological concept of consciousness is Difficulties with the Concept of Consciousness Difficulties with the Nature of Consciousness Could it perhaps be as R. J. Joynt (1981) pre- alluded to numerous times in contemporary phi- dicted: "Consciousness is like the Trinity; if it is losophy and psychology, and I will accept it here Because consciousness is a word whose semantics 14 It is often remarked that conscious experiences explained so that you understand it, it hasn't been as such. are "immediately familiar" to any subject of such explained correctly" (p. 108)? has shifted over time, a brief lexical and etymo- logical exposition may be of some service as Among the contemporary analytic philos- experiences. It is also argued that they are "so George Miller (1962), faced with these dif- a preliminary step. Let us start with present ophers, David Rosen thai (1997) has written immediately close" that it is at times difficult, if ficulties, tentatively entertains the interesting definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED: substantially about the distinction between the not impossible, to separate their appearance from Giiven Giizeldere 10 Approaching Consciousness 11

their reality. This ambiguity between the appear- tologically separable and therefore independent" literature, as I try to exemplify numerous times in often seems to deadlock debates on conscious- ance versus the reality of consciousness is also re- (p. 123). this exposition, that the very same problems, ness, stems from a fundamental and ultimately garded as unexampled; presumably nothing else Mijuskovic, in locating this form of reasoning analyses, and suggested solutions repeatedly ap- misleading intuition that I will call the segrega- in the world suffers from it. As such, it tends to in its historical context, also notes the presence of pear, and the very same theoretical moves re- tionist intuition: if the characterization of con- uniquely blur the line between the epistemology the converse of its inference: "If one begins with peatedly get introduced at different times in the sciousness is causal, then it has to be essentially and ontology of consciousness: if all there is to the notion, explicit or implicit, that thoughts or history of philosophy and psychology with little nonphenomenal, and if it is phenomenal, then it (the reality of) conscious states is their appearing minds are simple, unextended, indivisible, then it (if any) acknowledgement of past attempts and is essentially noncausal. (I call this formulation in a certain way to subjects, and if they have no seems to be an inevitable step before thinkers failures. In this regard, a historical approach that an "intuition" rather than a "thesis" due to its existential status independent of their so appear- connect the principle of an unextended, immate- exposes the misleading implicit assumptions widely diffused, often implicit and unarticulated, ing, the ontology of consciousness seems to col- rial soul with the impossibility of any knowledge common to the past failures should prove useful but highly influential nature.) 17 lapse into its epistemology. of an extended, material, external world" and in illustrating, at minimum, which steps not to In contrast with the segregationist intuition is Ironically, on the other hand, the problem ap- consequently, of the nature of the relation be- take in approaching consciousness at present. what I call the integrationist intuition: what con- pears to be just the opposite from a different tween them (p. 121). That is, this time an epis- sciousness does, qua consciousness, cannot be angle: the appearance of consciousness seems temological conclusion (regarding an epistemic characterized in the absence of how consciousness so different from its "physical reality" that a gap between mind and body) is reached from IE Looking Ahead: The Two Faces of seems, but more importantly, that how con- comprehensive theory that bridges this gap is a starting point constituted by ontological con- Consciousness sciousness seems cannot be conceptualized in the regarded as a near impossibility. In Sellarsian siderations (regarding the distinctness of their absence of what consciousness does. This counter terms, the scientific and manifest images of con- natures). Before proceeding further, I will offer a brief first intuition underwrites the project of trying to sciousness are considered to embody a theoretical The difficulties inherent in the nature of con- pass at a diagnosis that will be made at the end of dissolve the stalemate between accounts of gap perhaps greater than in any other subject sciousness constitute many of the philosophical this chapter: a principal reason underlying the consciousness respectively based on the causal matter. (Cf. Sellars 1991.) problems that will be discussed in depth in the rest confusion and seeming mystery surrounding the and the phenomenal characterizations, and marry of this chapter. In particular, the nature and concept and phenomenon of consciousness lies in them into a single unified account. The view that consciousness (or, in general, the the presence of two influential, equally attractive, validity of inferences between matters epistemo- This introduction is not an attempt towards mind) and its physical basis (or, in general, the pretheoretic characterizations. These two charac- logical and matters ontological, especially those accomplishing such a project. Nevertheless, while body) seem essentially so different from one an- terizations not only shape the methods with that go from the former to the latter, will con- presenting a conceptual mapping of the territory other that they must have distinct existences which consciousness is studied, but more fun- tinually appear as a leitmotif. Of course, some of and locating in it contemporary problems and is based on a deep-rooted idea in the history of damentally, shape the way the problems to be these difficulties may be overcome quite rapidly debates that center around consciousness, I hope philosophy. This idea and its variants were' con- studied are defined and delineated. They can as the study of consciousness advances; others to provide support for the integrationist intuition stitutive of arguments for the metaphysical in- be summarized in the following mottos: "Con- may prove more obstinate. But it may also turn that motivates it. In doing so, I also aim to sub- dependence of mind and body throughout early sciousness is as consciousness does" versus out that certain problems that seemed unsolvable stantiate an antiskeptical position with respect to modern philosophy of the seventeenth and eigh- "Consciousness is as consciousness seems." The had appeared that way because of the specific consciousness: there is a a deep-rooted and con- teenth centuries, perhaps most notably exempli- former is the causal characterization: it takes the ways in which they were formulated, or the im- tinuous theoretical thread connecting a set of re- fied in the work of Descartes. The essential and causal role consciousness plays in the general plicit assumptions they rested on. This possibility, current problems in the history of philosophy and complete nature of mind, generally speaking, economy of our mental lives as basic. The latter, too, will emerge as a relevant concern later in the psychology typically associated with conscious- seems to consist solely in thinking, and, as such, it in contrast, is the phenomenal characterization: it discussion. ness, indicating the presence of a persistent, sig- must be unextended, simple (with no parts), and takes as fundamental the way our mental lives nificant, and challenging object of study. essentially different from the body, and therefore The best way to gain insight into this sort of a seem (or "feel," for lack of a better term) to us— immaterial. This was Descartes's argument in a difficulty may very well be through locating the that is, the phenomenal qualities that we typically nutshell, ultimately drawing a strong ontological analysis in a broad historical perspective. The associate with our perceptions, pains, tickles, and PART TWO conclusion (regarding the distinctness of mind long history of consciousness research no doubt other mental states. and body) from a starting point constituted by contains hints that can be parlayed not only to A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: epistemic considerations (regarding the distinct- draw methodological lessons for further study, Most of the time, these two characterizations PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY ness of their appearances). As Ben Mijuskovic but also to reveal the constituent fibers of the past are taken to be mutually exclusive for explana- (1974) observes, in this type of argumentation, paradigms which couched persistent core prob- tory purposes, to the extent that accounts of con- There is possibly no other subject matter in the "the sword that severs the Gordian knot is the lems under different guises over and over. It is in sciousness built around one characterization are history of philosophy and science with as fasci- principle that what is conceptually distinct is on- fact the most striking feature of the consciousness typically accused of failing to capture the other. I nating a historical record as consciousness. Even believe that this undesirable consequence, which Giiven Guzeldere 12 Approaching Consciousness 13

within the past one hundred years, consciousness Arnauld). By "thought" Descartes must have had vious that Locke's second-order "perception" is (James 1950a, p. 185; originally published in 1890). has more than once been crowned as the most in mind something very similar to one of the as cognitively loaded as Descartes's "reflective But only fourteen years later, James would bit- significant aspect of human mentality, to be fol- contemporary usages of "consciousness," or perception," although they seem to serve the terly denounce consciousness in an article titled, lowed by periods of scapegoat treatment for the "awareness," especially given his definition in the same purpose in being responsible for conscious- "Does Consciousness Exist?" with the following failures of philosophy and science (in particular, Principles of Philosophy: "By the term 'thought' I ness of "first-order" mental goings on.19 There verdict: psychology) to give a satisfactory account of the understand everything which we are aware of as are also contemporaries of Descartes and Locke, mind. In either case, consciousness was hardly happening within us, in so far as we have aware- who located the epistemic locus of mind in qual- For twenty years past I have mistrusted "conscious- ever ignored. Explicitly or implicitly, it was an ness of it" (Descartes 1992, p. 174). itative conscious states rather than thoughts ness" as an entity; for seven or eight years past I have -suggested its non-existence to my students, and tried to ever-present concern for everyone thinking about Locke, coming after Descartes's rationalism or reflective perceptions. Most notably, Male- the human mind. from a distinctively empiricist tradition, was 20 give them its pragmatic equivalent in realities of experi- branche holds this view. ence. It seems to me that the hour is ripe for it to be nonetheless largely in agreement with his prede- Following is a brief journey through the his- This brief characterization of the early modern openly and universally discarded torical path that consciousness research has trav- cessor with respect to the nature of the relation philosophical thought on consciousness no doubt [Consciousness] is the name of a non-entity, and has no ersed in approximately the last hundred years, in between what was mental and what was con- fails to do justice to the subtleties involved. But right place among first principles. Those who still cling to particular via the schools of introspectionism, scious: they were conceptually tied. In Locke's for the sake of finding a starting point common it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumor left behind behaviorism, and cognitivism in psychology, with words, "thinking consists in being conscious that to both philosophy and "scientific psychology" in by the disappearing "soul," upon the air of philosophy. early modern philosophy taken as a starting one thinks," and "the idea of thinking in the ab- the study of consciousness, and tracing the issues (James 1971, p. 4; originally published in 1904) point. sence of consciousness is as unintelligible as the in double-track to the contemporary debates, I The reasons for this remarkable change of idea of a body which is extended without having will leap ahead to the late nineteenth century and, parts" (Locke 1959, bk. 2, chap. 1, p. 138). mind may partly lie deep in James's personal his- IV Consciousness in Early Modern Philosophy skipping over the problem of unity of conscious- tory, but they also have to do with the unique There is also another sense in which Descartes ness and Kant's treatment of "unity of appercep- and Locke seem to be in agreement: the idea place of consciousness as a subject matter in phi- tion," continue with the work of William James. losophy and psychology.21 A somewhat similar, In accord with the fact that the origins of the of construing consciousness in roughly some- almost neurotic shift of attitude, though in a word consciousness go back to early modern phi- thing like higher-order awareness. For Descartes, much larger scale, spanning the whole discipline losophy, it is generally agreed that Descartes gave proper sensations in adults exist only insofar as V The Last Hundred Yean: William James's of psychology and, to some extent, philosophy, the mind-body problem its modern formulation. they are accompanied by a second-order reflective Puzzle Descartes's own account respectively charac- occurred in a relatively short period of transition, awareness: "When an adult feels something, and early in this century. This transition involved terized mind and body as thinking versus ex- simultaneously perceives that he has not felt it William James may be the philosopher and psy- tended substances, and postulated that the nature the collapse of the then very established school before, I call this second perception reflection, chologist who thought and wrote more about of their relation was that of interaction between of introspectionism and the subsequent rise of and attribute it to the intellect alone, in spite of its consciousness than anyone else in history. Inter- 22 the res cogitans and the res extensa. But how did behaviorism. being so linked to sensation that the two occur estingly enough, the record of his stance(s) to- his notion of consciousness compare with his no- together and appear to be indistinguishable from ward consciousness is also the most curious one. tion of mind? And to what extent does his notion James allots a great deal of space to discussing the of consciousness capture the notion that presently each other" (Descartes 1991, p. 357: letter to Ar- VI Inrrospectionism 18 nauld, 29 July 1648, AT V, 221). Along this the- neural underpinnings, the evolutionary function, figures in contemporary debates? and the phenomenal nature of consciousness in oretical line, Descartes concludes, for instance, Introspectionism can be regarded as the first off- Descartes claimed that consciousness was an his monumental work, Principles of Psychology. that "pain exists only in the understanding" spring of the effort of pulling psychology apart essential component of everything that was men- According to James of this book, consciousness is (Descartes 1991, p. 148: letter to Mersenne, 11 from philosophy and establishing it as an in- tal, and by "consciousness" he meant something the starting place of all psychology, the most cru- June 1640, AT III, 85). dependent, "scientific" discipline on its own. akin to one's awareness of one's own mental cial aspect of human mentality. In a chapter on In a somewhat similar vein, Locke famously Ironically, behaviorism would later denounce in- states: "As to the fact that there can be nothing in the methodology of psychology, he states: "In- stated that "consciousness is the perception of trospectionism as having tangled with meta- the mind, in so far as it is a thinking thing, of trospective Observation is what we have to rely what passes in a man's own mind" (Locke 1959, physics and present itself as the true, alternative which it is not aware, this seems to me to be self- on first and foremost and always. The word in- bk. 2, chap. 1, §19, p. 138). However, it may be scientific school of psychology. In actuality, in evident. For there is nothing that we can under- trospection need hardly be defined—it means, of unfair to read too much into the "higher-order their struggle for identity, both schools borrowed stand to be in the mind, regarded in this way, that course, the looking into our own minds and re- awareness" construal and make Descartes's and a great deal from the scientific methodology of is not a thought or dependent on a thought" porting what we there discover. Every one agrees Locke's views seem more similar than they ac- their times, and neither one's approach was in- (Descartes 1993b, p. 171, fourth set of replies to that we there discover states of consciousness" tually are. For instance, it is not altogether ob- trinsically more "scientific" than the other. Approaching Consciousness Giiven Giizeldere 14 15

Introspectionism's fundamental assumption make introspectionism appear as a scientifically trast, Kiilpe's published results pointed to a total remained the theoretical knot that it was until was that psychology was the study of the "phe- baseless enterprise, further burdened with the of fewer than 12,000 (Boring 1942, p. 10). Who introspectionism, as a whole, eventually disap- nomenology" of the human mind; it attempted to metaphysically dubious cargo of consciousness— was telling the truth? peared against the rising tide of behaviorism.27 give a full description of the mental landscape as so much so that John Watson, in the opening Conflicting results are no surprise in any ex- In sum, the fact that introspectionism ulti- it appeared to the subject. The data points con- pages of his book that served as the behavior- perimental discipline. What led introspectionism mately located the locus of authority with regard sisted of discriminations in subjects' sensations ist manifesto, belittled introspectionists' concern to a dead end was an additional methodological to the data in the word of the subject, while of colors, sounds, smells, and the like. In doing with consciousness by likening it to witchcraft: shortcoming: the lack of a generally agreed-upon training procedures for subjects were not stand- so, introspectionism largely modeled its method- "Behaviorism claims that consciousness is neither method of falsifying any of the results. The nature ardized across laboratories to immunize against ology after the modern chemistry of the day, a definite nor a usable concept. The behaviorist, of introspective reports constituting the core of "stimulus-error," brought the death sentence which was enjoying a high reputation due to its who has been trained always as an experimenta- the data in the introspectionist paradigm was to the movement. When the subjects' reports successes in having put together the atomic table. list, holds, further, that belief in the existence of colored by the subjects' previous training. Titch- showed statistical inconsistencies, the whole in- The fundamental belief underlying most of in- consciousness goes back to the ancient days of enerian introspectionists were very careful not trospectionist community found itself up against trospectionist research was that a full under- superstition and magic" (Watson 1970, p. 2). to work with "naive subjects," enforcing strict a theoretical wall. This impasse, which surfaced standing of the mind was possible only after In reality, introspectionism was as much an at- procedures to avoid "stimulus errors," but this as a result of several years of careful laboratory completing an exhaustive inventory of its "atomic tempt to bring psychology up to par with natural policy worked against them in the end. Although work, brought with it a sad ending to a research units," most elemental sensory impressions one sciences—to make it a "science of the mental," a rigorous and careful training program and paradigm of hundreds of experiments and thou- can discriminate. Introspectionism, in other with ideas and methods inspired largely by chem- meticulous repetition of the experiments provided sands of subjects.28 words, was in the business of constructing an an acceptable degree of statistical consistency 23 istry. Although the founding adherents of be- atomic table of the human mind. (Cf. Kulpe haviorism wholeheartedly denied any intellectual within individual laboratories, the results across 1901; Titchener 1915.) debt to their predecessors and did a good job of different laboratories were sometimes highly VH Behaviorism Giving a full inventory of anything is no easy making themselves appear completely detached contradictory. Unfortunately, when individual feat, and attempting this for the totality of the from their past, they were very similar to the in- "seemings" (of colors, sounds, tactile sensations) In contrast to introspectionism, behaviorism ar- human "sensory space" was a daunting task, even trospectionists in aspiration and professional were what counted as the sole data, each "phe- rived with an extremely straightforward method- in the hands of scrupulous researchers and metic- policy with regard to methodology.26 nomenal" report had to be taken at face value. ology (that would ultimately cut, rather than try ulously trained subjects.24 However, the fall of In any case, it would not be fair to place on And within such a framework, the degree and to untangle, the knot of consciousness), and it introspectionism did not result from depleted solely external causes all responsibility for in- nature of previous training, which apparently was appeared as a fresh alternative in the troubling patience or the lack of a sufficient number of trospectionism's formidable downfall, which not standardized, made all the difference. times of introspectionism. There was one and only one element in its research agenda: publicly experiments. The failure had deeper reasons, both brought with it the downfall and disgrace of both Edwin Boring recounts an anecdote in which observable behavior. In the natural sciences, be- external and internal. consciousness (as a subject matter for research) Titchener and Edwin Holt debated, in front of an haviorists argued, all phenomena under scrutiny The external reason for failure was the overall and introspection (as a method for studying the audience of other psychologists, whether green were open to third-party observation. Behavior changing intellectual climate in Europe and the mind) for several decades. There were serious was an "atomic color" or a combination of blue was a perfect candidate as a subject matter of this United States, especially the rising influence of and yellow. Each side insisted on his own judg- reasons internal to the paradigm as well. Most sort. Moreover, behaviorism was able to avoid positivism in all sectors of science, as well as ment, and there was no means to settle the issue. important was the apparently irreconcilable introspectionism's fatal problem of irreconcilably the humanities. The general positivist attitude One of the most serious conflicts, somewhat sim- conflict between results coming out of different conflicting subjective reports by, in Boring's constituted a significant motivation for psycho- ilar to this but larger in scope, involved a staunch laboratories. The most significant polarity was words, shifting "the locus of scientific responsi- logists, who had been trying hard to sever their disagreement between the followers of Titchener constituted by two main streams of research pur- bility from an observing subject to the experi- professional ties with philosophers and to move and those of Kulpe on the existence of "imageless sued in two different continents: the Wurzburg menter who becomes the observer of the subject" away from anything "mental" in an attempt to thought." Titchener was convinced that all con- school, represented by Kulpe and his students in (Boring 1953, p. 184). relocate psychology among natural sciences. Leipzig, versus the Cornell school, lead by Titch- scious thought involved some form of imagery, at Consciousness was the subject matter of no ener and his associates in Ithaca, New York. For least some sensory elements. However, subjects Watson championed this shift of locus and the natural science, so it could not be the subject from Kulpe's laboratory came up with reports of change in the subject matter of the new psychol- 25 instance, Titchener's laboratory reported that matter of psychology either. they discovered a total of "more than 44,435" having experienced thoughts with no associated ogy from "facts of the internal" to "facts of the The positivist atmosphere further provided a discriminably different sensations, largely con- imagery whatsoever. The debate came to a stale- external" in a rather rallying manner in the fol- lowing advice to his colleagues: context in which it was easier for behaviorists to sisting of visual and auditory elements. In con- mate of, "You cannot experience X," of Titch- enerians versus "Yes, we can!" of Kulpeians, and Guven Giizeldere 16 Approaching Consciousness 17

\

Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely ob- trine in its metaphysical claims and weak in the introduction to his book, mentions the change the keepers of the jail and to speak freely of the jective experimental branch of natural science. Its theo- grounding the strong claims it was making on in the intellectual atmosphere among psycholo- need for a concept of consciousness still ties the retical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. what it took the world's constituents to be. The gists in a wry tone: "A generation ago, a book like tongues of not a few cognitive psychologists" Introspection forms no essential part of its method nor ultimate expression of the extreme view behav- this one would have needed at least a chapter of (Mandler 1975, p. 229). Of course, Mandler was is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the iorism came to hold about the ontology of con- self-defense against the behaviorist position. To- not alone in pointing to the importance of con- readiness with which they lend themselves to inter- sciousness is reflected in the formula Karl Lashley day, happily, the climate of opinion has changed, sciousness in cognitive psychology. Tim Shallice, pretation in terms of consciousness. (Watson 1913, for instance, had observed a few years earlier that p. 158) used to characterize "strict Behaviorism": "Con- and little or no defense is necessary. Indeed, sciousness is the particular laryngeal gesture we stimulus-response theorists themselves are in- "theoretical developments in cognitive psychol- You, as a psychologist, if you are to remain scientific, have come to use to stand for the rest" (Lashley venting hypothetical mechanisms with vigor and ogy and the increasing use of introspective reports must describe the behavior of man in no other terms 1923, p. 240). However, the metaphysical foun- enthusiasm and only faint twinges of conscience" require a rationale, and that this should involve than those you would use in describing the behavior of dations of behaviorism, what it so passionately (Neisser 1967, p. 5). consideration of consciousness" (Shallice 1972, the ox you slaughter. (Watson 1970, p. ix) tried to detach itself from, turned out to be For consciousness research, the era of cognitive p. 383). The term consciousness had never figured in the its own Achilles' heel, the cracked brick in the psychology was marked with a few timid over- Interestingly, it was the success, not the failure, vocabulary of any natural science, and it had to edifice. Even during the heyday of behaviorism, tures. With the advent of cognitive psychology, of information-processing models in explain- leave the vocabulary of the scientific psychology when all talk about consciousness was strictly whose fundamental ideas were largely inspired by ing learning, memory, problem solving, and the as well. Watson was confident that behaviorism taboo, consciousness was always present as a computational models, consciousness found a like—actually almost everything except con- marked the beginning of an era that was also the hidden variable in the minds and research agen- new niche, though in terms completely foreign to sciousness—that brought some attention to point of no return for consciousness: das of psychologists. Boring was cognizant of this its past: it became a kind of component or aspect consciousness itself. The fact that consciousness fact as early as the 1930s, when he declared: of information-processing models. Although only seemed to be the last remaining unexplained phe- The time seems to have come when psychology must "Behaviorism owes its ism to consciousness. And a small percentage of the models developed at the nomenon in an otherwise successful new research discard all reference to consciousness; when it need no what would it be without its isrri! Well, it would time secured a role for consciousness, cognitivism paradigm helped highlight old questions about longer delude itself into thinking that it is making men- be physiology" (Boring 1963, p. 275). Much brought about the first signs of the dissolution of consciousness buried during the behaviorist era. tal states the object of observation This suggested later, Julian Jaynes would retrospectively note a taboo. Nonetheless, even these cautious begin- Furthermore, similar developments were taking elimination of states of consciousness as proper objects that "off the printed page, behaviorism was only nings were not easy; consciousness would have to place in philosophy. Functionalist accounts, of investigation in themselves will remove the barrier a refusal to talk about consciousness" (Jaynes wait until the current ongoing ascent of neuro- largely inspired by computational ideas, were from psychology which exists between it and the other being met with noticeable success in explaining sciences. (Watson 1913, p. 163,177) 1976, p. 15). psychology research to come back under the This make-believe attitude about the absence spotlight. In cognitivism, cognition needed de- prepositional attitudes, whereas consciousness (in Behaviorism remained a very influential para- of anything, let alone consciousness, occurring fense over behavior no more, but consciousness the sense of the subjective character of experience, digm for psychology for over half a century and somewhere between the input impinging on the over cognition still did. or qualia) was largely being regarded as the only managed to have the words consciousness and in- subject and the subject's subsequent behavior was In this context, George Mandler's manifesto aspect of mind escaping the net of functionalist trospection disappear from the face of the Anglo- also precisely what provided cognitive psychol- "Consciousness: Respectable, Useful, and Prob- explanation. (See, for instance, Ned Block's in- American world.29 There were obvious reasons ogy the fulcrum it needed to topple behaviorism. ably Necessary," even though it was not the first fluential article, "Troubles with Functionalism" for the enthusiastic acceptance of behaviorism In Neisser's words, "the basic reason for studying article that came out of the cognitivist literature 1978, as well as Block and Fodor 1980.) by psychologists, motivated by its promising, cognitive processes has become clear as the rea- on consciousness, and despite being written in Shallice was one of the first to point out the "trouble-free" methodology. However, behav- son for studying anything else: because they are a somewhat gingerly manner, stands out as a special place consciousness occupied in the prob- iorism became influential as a doctrine not only of there. Our knowledge of the world must be some- cornerstone.31 Mandler opens his article with lem space of cognitive psychology: "The problem methodology but also one of ontology. The how developed from the stimulus input" (Neisser the following historical remarks: "I welcome this of consciousness occupies an analogous position behaviorist line turned into a fundamental belief 1967, p. 5).30 opportunity to act as amicus curiae on behalf of for cognitive psychology as the problem of lan- not only that whatever psychology—the disci- one of the central concepts of cognitive theory— guage behavior does for behaviorism, namely, an pline—could study could be studied by observ- consciousness. Another statement, however im- unsolved anomaly within the domain of the ap- ing behavior, but also that all there was to Cognitivfem (and Beyond) perfect, may be useful to undo the harm that proach" (Shallice 1972, p. 383). Attempts to find psychology—the phenomenon—was observable consciousness suffered during fifty years (ap- some role for consciousness in a cognitive econ- behavior. Ulric Neisser's Cognitive Psychology became a proximately 1910 to 1960) in the oubliettes of be- omy turned up results that at times exceeded This was what made (ontological) behaviorism mark of a new era in psychology and proclaimed haviorism. It is additionally needed because so expectations. Mandler, for instance, pointed to both very strong and very weak: strong as a doc- the name of the new game in its title. Neisser, in many of us have a history of collaboration with the possibility that consciousness might be the Giiven Giizeldere 18 Approaching Consciousness 19

missing central element in a cognitivist frame- A prominent account of consciousness in re- The received conception of the transparency of of the mental was completely unheard of or un- work, able to tie together several separate lines of cent cognitive psychology, Bernard Baars's the mind to one's consciousness, found in Des- acknowledged, however. In other words, Freud cognitive research: "I hope to show that con- (1988) A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness, is cartes and Locke, was not without exceptions, was not really the inventor (or discoverer) of the sciousness is ... probably necessary because it similarly given in information-theoretic terms however.34 Most notably, Leibniz, in his vision- concept of the unconscious in any way. On the serves to tie together many disparate but ob- with substantial use of functional diagrams. This ary reply to Locke in New Essays, can be said to contrary, the general intellectual atmosphere of viously related mental concepts, including atten- trend of diagramming in cognitive psychology, have anticipated some very important develop- the times preceding Freud's appearance allowed tion, perceptual elaboration, and limited capacity inspired largely by flowcharts of computational talk about mental activity of various sorts that 32 ments to come in psychology two centuries ahead notions" (Mandler 1975, p. 229). models in computer science, also got imported of their time, especially those with regard to the occurred without the subject's awareness, at least Of course, there were others on whose work into philosophy of mind by empirically minded nature and role of the unconscious: "There are a in any direct way. For instance, the well-known Mandler was basing bis claim. Most notably, philosophers. A primary example is Daniel Den- thousand indications which lead us to think that metaphor of the mind as an iceberg, consisting of Norman (1968) and Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) nett's model in his "Toward a Cognitive Theory there are at every moment numberless perceptions consciousness as the tip above the surface and of had used consciousness as a property demarcat- of Consciousness" (1986). Similar functional in us, but without apperception and without re- a subsurface unconscious component, constituted ing processes of different kinds (conscious versus flowchart models are also being used in some of flection In a word, insensible [unconscious] by hidden currents but nonetheless effective on unconscious processes) in their respective unistore the present day neuropsychological accounts. (Cf. perceptions are of as great use in psychology as one's conscious mental life, was generally recog- and multistore models of memory. Treisman Schacter 1988 and Shallice 1988, especially chap. insensible corpuscles are in physics, and it is nized and used. (1969) and Posner and Boies (1971), among 16.) equally as unreasonable to reject the one as the In particular, toward the end of the nineteenth others, talked about consciousness as a limited other under the pretext that they are beyond century, the idea of the unconscious mind had capacity processing mechanism. Shallice's idea the reach of our senses" (Leibniz 1951, pp. 374- become operative among many scientists, philos- was to equate consciousness as selector input in IX The Study of the Unconscious 378). ophers, and literary scholars, in a lineage trace- his cognitive model of the dominant action sys- Nonetheless, taking consciousness as marking able back from Rousseau to Goethe, to Fichte, tem. Johnson-Laird characterized the "contents One important line of thought in the study of the boundaries of mind by and large remained an and to Nietzsche (Whyte 1960). Freud apparently consciousness that has not yet been addressed in of consciousness" as the "current values of pa- influential maxim until the time of Freud. For acknowledged this, as reported by Ernest Jones, rameters governing the high-level computations this chapter is the foundation of the crucial dis- instance, the entry for "consciousness" in the one of the most prominent Freud scholars, in the of the operating system" (1983a, p. 465; 1983b). tinction between the conscious and unconscious 1901 edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy following statement he made at his seventeenth All in all, the common presupposition driving aspects of mentality. According to Johnson- and Psychology reads as follows: "[Conscious- birthday celebrations: "The poets and philos- the cognitivist research on consciousness was Laird, "The division between conscious and un- ness] is the distinctive character of whatever may ophers before me discovered the unconscious. that "the basic phenomenological concept—con- conscious processes is the best available clue to be called mental life" (Baldwin 1901, p. 216). What I discovered was the scientific method by sciousness—can be mapped onto an information- the structure of the mind" (Johnson-Laird 1983a, which the unconscious can be studied" (quoted in processing concept" (Shallice 1972, p. 383).33 p. 466). Freud would probably agree. None- Within this context, the introspectionist convic- tion of the time—that psychology is the "science Maclntyre 1958, p. 6). There were also attempts Most of these models came complete with their theless, conceptions of the unconscious have to study the unconscious empirically. For in- changed from their Freudian origins to their cog- of the mental"—provided an especially strong flowcharts, with each functionally denned ele- basis for rejecting the unconscious as part of the stance, Henri Ellenberger credits Gustav Fechner, ment confined to its own black box and arrows nitivist incarnations. Following is a brief histor- a pioneer of psychophysics research, as the first ical account of the unconscious. mental, and hence as a subject matter for psy- indicating the direction of information flow chology. Titchener, for example, was resistant to person who tried to reveal the nature of the un- conscious by experimental methods, though his among them. Consciousness, then, became a box the idea of the unconscious, to the extent of de- The Freudian Unconscious work did not prove fruitful (Ellenberger 1970, among boxes—a module connected to various claring it a theoretically dangerous construct for chap. 5). other modules of processing in which input was psychology: "The subconscious may be defined as Until the time of Freud, there was no proper the- registered, intermediate results were transmitted, an extension of the conscious beyond the limits of However, none of these ideas about mental oretical framework in which to reject the Carte- and output was delivered. This approach to con- observation.... [T]he subconscious is not a part of processes going on in one's mind without being sian idea of equating the mind with whatever lay sciousness has, according to Neisser, a special the subject-matter of psychology In the first conscious were well formulated: there was no co- within the scope of one's consciousness. In other strategical advantage: "It represents a theoretical place, the construction of a subconscious is un- herent account to explain the structure, func- words, consciousness was generally taken to be coup: not only are the facts of attention appar- necessary Secondly, the introduction of a sub- tional role, or operation of the unconscious, or ently explained, but psychology's most elusive "the point of division between miftd and not conscious is dangerous" (Titchener 1915, pp. 326- the modality of its relation to consciousness in target is finally nailed down to a box in a flow mind" (Baldwin 1901, p. 216)—the mark of the 35 327, emphases in the original text). the general scheme of an individual's mental life. chart" (Neisser 1976, p. 103). mental. None of this should be taken as claiming that There was consensus regarding neither the nature the concept of the unconscious as a part or aspect of the unconscious, nor its place in regard to Guven Giizeldere 20 Approaching Consciousness 21

consciousness, in the intellectual community. To An encompassing account of the Freudian un- such states is being pursued on independent con- to leave out something important: the subjective, this situation Freud brought a steadily evolving conscious, including its structure and dynamics, ceptual grounds. In fact, the dichotomy of con- experiential aspect of consciousness. Perhaps there theoretical framework in which, for the first time, is given in Erdelyi (1985). Erdelyi also makes a scious versus nonconscious processes is not the is something about consciousness that makes its construction of hypotheses to answer each of strong case that Freudian psychology was indeed only such ground on which current research identification with specific modules of isolated these questions became possible. This is the sense very close, in essence, to the cognitive psychology in cognitive psychology rests. There are several functions fundamentally inadequate. in which Freud can be said to be the pioneer of of our day—especially in terms of its approach to other such distinctions, all overlapping in various Interestingly, it was Neisser who registered the unconscious.36 understanding mental phenomena, and research ways in their function to distinguish mental pro- such a concern about the information-processing In Freudian theory, the unconscious proper methodology. He even goes on to reconstruct cesses that are directly available to the subject models of consciousness during the heyday of consists of repressed processes, exerting stress on Freudian schemas of the structure of conscious- ("introspectable," importable, etc.) and those that cognitivism: the conscious component of the subject's mind ness, quite plausibly, in modern flowchart style. are opaque and unavailable, as reflected in a re- and shaping his or her daily life in substantial Neisser (1976) also refers to Freud's diagrams cent note by cognitive psychologists Holyoak and The treatment of consciousness as a processing stage is ways. This is in contrast to the preconscious, depicting the structure of the tripartite division Spellman: unsatisfactory in a still more fundamental way. It does which includes those processes that only con- of consciousness, preconsciousness, and uncon- justice neither to the usages of the word "consciousness" tingently happen to lie outside awareness. What is sciousness as "flowcharts" (See Freud 1950, Theorists of diverse persuasions have been led to pro- in ordinary discourse nor to the subtleties of experience. A better conception of consciousness, which has been preconscious can easily become conscious with- p. 394).J7 It is true not only that Freud antici- pose cognitive dichotomies, which have been given a out special techniques or effort; what is uncon- rather bewildering array of labels: unconscious vs. con- suggested many times in the history of psychology, pated some of the developments in cognitive psy- would recognize it as an aspect of activity rather than as scious has to be "brought to the surface" through chology but also that the Freudian unconscious, scious, procedural vs. declarative, automatic vs. con- trolled, reflexive vs. reflective, and many others. an independently definable mechanism Conscious- the psychoanalytic technique with the help of an even if under different names, has played a sig- ness is an aspect of mental activity, not a switching These distinctions do not always divide cognition analyst. nificant role as an influential construct in cogni- center on the intrapsychic railway. (Neisser 1976, pp. along the same lines ... [but] there are tantalizing sim- 104-105) The Freudian unconscious, although related, is tive psychology. ilarities among the proposed dichotomies. In particular, not the same sense of unconsciousness employed the first member of each pair is generally viewed as in- in the current cognitive psychology research re- The Cognitive Unconscious volving unconscious mental processes, a topic that has Many people, including philosophers, pro- garding unconscious processes—the "cognitive seen a recent resurgence of interest among experimental ceeded with Neisser's intuitions in the past few unconscious." Unconscious processes of both There has also been a whole research industry in psychologists. (Holyoak and Spellman 1993, p. 265) decades. Something essential to (at least our kinds are opaque to introspection, but there is contemporary cognitive psychology involved in commonsense conception of) consciousness; it a difference between them. The Freudian uncon- investigating the nature of the unconscious: men- In sum, whether or not Johnson-Laird is right was largely believed, was necessarily left out in scious exists because of past events, explainable tal processes that underlie cognition but are them- in his claim about the distinction between the characterizing consciousness only by specifying by repression mechanisms and the like, and is not selves not conscious.38 Over the past few decades, conscious and the unconscious being the most its functional role in the cognitive economy of in principle inaccessible. The cognitive uncon- there has been an enormous wealth of data important theoretical tool to study the mind, one human mentation and behavior. This some- scious, on the other hand, exists due to the way accumulated, operative in current psychological can easily say that the investigation of the un- thing—the phenomenal face of consciousness— our perceptual-cognitive system is constituted theory, in this area—from rules of Chomskian conscious in cognitive psychology has proved to brings us back Ml circle to the problem of the two and lies in principle outside our access. The be at least as fruitful as the investigation of the faces of consciousness. universal grammar, to computational mecha- 40 mechanisms that subserve depth perception, for nisms underlying vision and the 2\D sketch in- conscious. In the last part of this chapter, I will examine instance, are taken to be hard-wired: they are not spired by the work of the late David Marr (1982), the dialectic of the opposition between the segre- there because of repression, and they can never and to Newell and Simon's work on cognitive gationist and the integrationist intuitions, in the X Status Report: From Information Processing become conscious through any method, psycho- constraints in planning, problem solving, and context of the causal and phenomenal character- toQualia analytic or otherwise. game playing (1972). Consequently, the classi- izations of consciousness. fication of mental processes as conscious versus The recognition and study of the cognitive un- What is the current status of cognitive psychol- nonconscious is useful and not unusual (though conscious goes even further back than Freud, at ogy? Information-processing models in psychol- controversial) in psychological practice, espe- PART THREE least to von Helmholtz's work on perceptual ogy are still popular, but they do not constitute PROBLEMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS: A constancy, and spans a substantial period, all the cially in research on psycholinguistics, attention, 39 the sole dominant paradigm any more. This is PERSPECTIVE ON CONTEMPORARY way up to the thesis of "unconscious perceptual and perception. Furthermore, as evidenced from contemporary psychology literature, re- also reflected in models of consciousness. But ISSUES AND CURRENT DEBATES inference" by Rock (1983). Despite these differ- there are other reasons, too, for the shift in the ences, however, Freud's approach to the uncon- search on type identifying mental states as con- research paradigm with respect to consciousness. "Consciousness is a word worn smooth by a mil- scious was very modern and in anticipation of the scious versus nonconscious, and research on the One of them is the recognition that the functional lion tongues," George Miller once said. "De- "cognitive revolution." nature of consciousness of the subjects who have diagrammatic depictions of consciousness seem pending upon the figure of speech chosen it is a Giiven Guzeldere 22 Approaching Consciousness 23

state of being, a substance, a process, a place, an Fodor chooses to stay away from the first, despite Strawson (1994) takes the similar position that Another attempt to characterize (phenomenal) epiphenomenon, an emergent aspect of matter, or his career-long devotion to the latter two (which consciousness is the only distinctive characteristic consciousness and intentionality as the two hall- the only true reality" (Miller 1962, p. 25). he takes to be closely related). This attitude is not of the mind. marks of the mind, though for the purposes of a The conceptual and historical analyses I have at all uncommon. It is generally accepted as a re- The beginnings of this line of thought can be critique, is given by Richard Rorty (1979, p. 24) presented are in agreement with Miller: it is ceived view that the two fundamental aspects of traced back to Brentano's discussion of the rela- in terms of the diagram in figure I.I. There are in probably best to regard and treat consciousness mind, consciousness and intentionality, can be tion between mental and physical phenomena in fact various ways to fill in such a diagram, and as a cluster concept. There are simply too many studied in the absence of one another—at least Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Bren- which elements of the mental are to occupy which connotations that go under the term, and it seems that intentionality can be so studied with no ref- tano is acknowledged as being first to postulate cells is a matter of controversy. For instance, not futile to try to specify a single concept that would erence to consciousness. Here, "consciousness" intentionality as the mark of the mental in mod- everyone thinks that beliefs and desires are with- cover all aspects of consciousness or a single "the typically refers to the qualitative aspects of ern terms. For instance, he says: "Every mental out a phenomenal component (Searle 1992), or problem of consciousness." Nonetheless, I have consciousness, and "intentionality" is taken phenomenon is characterized by ... the inten- that pains have no representational or intentional tried to illustrate, there is a coherent theoretical sufficiently broadly to embrace questions about tional inexistence of an object, and what we might aspects (Dretske 1995, Tye 1995). And the ad- thread constituted by certain problems and not semantics, as well as rationality. Fodor"s justifi- call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference herents of panpsychism would probably maintain others, that one can trace from texts in early cation is the following: to a content, direction toward an object (which is that the cell that holds what Rorty labels "the modern (if not ancient Greek) philosophy to the not to be understood here as meaning a thing) merely physical" is bound to remain nil.42 None- emergence of scientific psychology in the nine- It used to be universally taken for granted that the This intentional inexistence is characteristic ex- theless, this way of depicting the-dimensions of teenth century, to the present. problem about consciousness and the problem about clusively of mental phenomena. No physical phe- the mental is useful in terms of illustrating what intentionality are intrinsically linked: that thought is The most troublesome feature of this thread is ipso facto conscious, and that consciousness is ipso nomenon exhibits anything like it" (Brentano has been the most problematic aspect of the study what has been most difficult to explain, and it is 1874, pp. 88-89). And regarding consciousness, of consciousness. In this diagram, it is what Rorty facto consciousness of some or other intentional ob- 43 the topic I arrived at by the end of the historical ject Freud changed all that. He made it seem plau- Brentano states, for instance, that "no mental calls "raw feels." -, analysis: the qualitative, or phenomenal aspects sible that explaining behavior might require the phenomenon is possible without a correlative Most of the current debates involving con- \ of consciousness, or qualia. Of course, the notion postulation of intentional but unconscious states. Over consciousness" (p. 121). Although the connota- sciousness revolve around the (possible) inhabi- of consciousness theoretically outstrips the notion the last century, and most especially in Chomskian tions of the terms consciousness and intentionality tants of this particular cell and their nature. Are of qualia, and there are many fascinating aspects linguistics and in cognitive psychology, Freud's idea have somewhat shiiited from Brentano's time to there really such things as nonrepresentational to consciousness that do not necessarily have a appears to have been amply vindicated Dividing the present, I think it is fair to note that there is but phenomenal properties? If there are, what is qualitative component (e.g., its representational and conquering—concentrating on intentionality and a great deal of theorizing in his work that lay their ontological nature, what kinds of special aspect, its attentive and control components, and ignoring consciousness—has proved a remarkably suc- the foundations of an account of the mental that epistemological problems do they present, and cessful research strategy so far. (Fodor 1991b, p. 12) mechanisms of the unconscious). But it is also attempts to incorporate these two dimensions of how can their semantics be given? Can they ever questionable whether qualitative and nonqualita- Not everyone agrees, however. In particular, the mind in a principled way. be captured in naturalistic explanatory scheme, tive aspects of consciousness can really be under- John Searle recently argued for what he called the stood or explained independent of one another. "connection principle": the thesis that conscious- These are the questions I will focus on and pursue ness and intentionality are immanently linked, With phenomenal Without phenomenal below. and, contra Fodor's thesis, any research strategy properties properties that tries to explain the latter without recourse to XI Consciousness and hrtentionality: Two the former is doomed to failure. Searle states the Intentional, Occurrent thoughts, Beliefs, desires, Dimensions of Mind connection principle as follows: "Only a being representational mental images intentions that could have conscious intentional states could Jerry Fodor once remarked: "There are, I think, have intentional states at all, and every uncon- Nonintentional, Raw feels (e.g., "The merely physical" scious intentional state is at least potentially nonrepresentational pains and what babies three great metaphysical puzzles about the mind. s a How could anything material have conscious conscious [TJhere ' conceptual connection have when they see between consciousness and intentionality that states? How could anything material have se- colored objects) mantical properties? How could anything mate- has the consequence that a complete theory of intentionality requires an account of conscious- rial be rational?" (Fodor 1991a, reply to Devitt, 41 p. 285). Having enumerated these three questions, ness" (Searle 1992, p. 132). More recently, Figure 1.1 Two dimensions of mind Giiven Giizeldere 24 Approaching Consciousness 25

or are they inherently bound to remain mysteri- we become confused because whenever we are We are all subjects of a variety of perceptual ex- respectable account of consciousness that does ous? These are the questions that constitute the thinking about consciousness, we are surrounded periences, thoughts and ideas, pains and tickles, justice to the richness of our conscious experi- consciousness debates today. by it, and can only imagine what consciousness is joys and sorrows. Under normal circumstances, ences of sights and sounds within a framework not. The fish, someone has said, will be the last to there is nothing more familiar with the way the based on a monistic materialist ontology? Con- discover water" (Miller 1962, p. 25). face of one's spouse looks, the way a favorite sciousness just does not seem to be the kind of XII Perspectivity and Epistemic Asymmetry Miller's observation is intriguing. One cannot, drink tastes, the way the chronic heartburn starts phenomenon that is amenable to the sort of sci- in principle, study the minute details of a micro- to make itself felt. We all have, it seems, firsthand, entific explanation that works so well with all Naturally, there can be several different entry scope's outer surface, for instance, by using the immediate, direct knowledge of the rich phenom- other biological phenomena, such as digestion points to the kind of exposition I aim to present very same microscope. This would be impossible enology of colors, sounds, tastes, aromas, and or reproduction. The facts that would settle the here. The investigation of consciousness is as fas- simply because of the way the microscope, as a tactile sensations that embellish our experiences— question of whether some organism—an animal cinating as it is difficult, and it presents unique the qualia. All these are constituents of a specific or a fellow human being—is digesting do not epistemological and ontological difficulties. Al- tool, is designed and used. Neither can one di- mode of being for every individual; they de- seem to be available in the same way when it though my overarching goal is to provide an rectly take the picture of a camera by using the camera itself. But why should these considera- termine, in Thomas Nagel's famous phrase, what comes to the question of consciousness in others, overview of the contemporary problems of con- especially in the case of organisms phylogeneti- sciousness rather than try to present my own sol- tions apply to the study of consciousness using it is like to be that individual (Nagel 1974). consciousness itself? One can certainly lay the Moreover, we all seem to have a "privileged" cally distant from ourselves. There seems to be no utions to them, I will start by presenting a brief ordinary way to peek into the inner lives of oth- body of a microscope under another microscope way of knowing about our own thoughts, feel- profile of what I take to be the primarily respon- ers—to feel their pains, go through their sensa- for examination or take pictures of one camera ings, and sensations. Epistemological problems sible component in the consciousness puzzle: the tions, or directly observe their consciousness.46 with another. It may be that the sort of recursive about knowledge notwithstanding, and even the epistemic element of perspectivity. Perspectivity, That is, there seems to be an epistemic impossi- impossibility involved in the self-study of tools question of the incorrigibility of the mental put or the fact that consciousness is a phenomenon bility for anyone to have direct access to the applies to the phenomenon of self-conscious- that admits a distinction between "perspectives," aside, it seems that there is at least a special mode qualia of others—literally share their first-person ness—for example, one's study of one's own or "points of view" in its explication, lies deep at in which one's own experiences are present to perspective, in short, to partake in the mode of the roots of the common understanding of con- consciousness by introspection. But Miller is one, in an immediate, direct way, not available 45 what it is like to be them. These are the limitations sciousness, as well as the attitude of puzzlement. concerned with the study of consciousness in for anyone else. of the third-person perspective: from the outside, Furthermore, epistemically based theses about general here, not only self-consciousness, and it is Further, the common wisdom goes, we cannot 44 firsthand exploration of the consciousness of consciousness seem much less controversial than not clear why the analogy should hold. genuinely entertain the possibility that we may be others just seems to be out of the reach of ordi- ontologically based theses. I start by sketching a Nonetheless, Miller's point is related to what I lacking consciousness; the very fact that we are nary scientific methods, others' experiences being commonsense conception of consciousness and see as the source of what makes consciousness questioning our own consciousness renders the neither directly observable nor noninferentially try to reveal just how perspectivity figures in it. puzzling. The difficulty lies in the curious duality possibility of our not being the entertainer of verifiable. And therein this asymmetry between Then I will proceed to examine its possible onto- inherent in the (epistemic) study of the phenom- some occurrent thoughts logically contradictory. the first- and the third-person perspectives lies the logical ramifications. enon. This duality does not need to be inherent in If in nothing else, Descartes was perhaps right in epistemic duality in the study consciousness. the (ontological) nature of the phenomenon of Why does consciousness keep appearing as an this regard: The mere fact of being the bearer of But what exactly follows from this asymmetry? unsolved puzzle for philosophy, psychology, and consciousness itself or its properties. In fact, as I (these) thoughts is, in the Cartesian sense, un- What do the limitations of the third-person neuroscience? There do not seem to be similar have mentioned, the ontology of consciousness is mistakable evidence, for oneself, that one is con- approach entail, for example? Are there any puzzles associated with the study of, say, mem- an issue open to current debates. But as far as the scious. This is the characteristic of the first-person insurmountable problems for a systematic study ory or learning, or biological development and epistemology of the matter goes, there appears perspective; from the inside, consciousness seems of consciousness—its nature, underlying mecha- growth. What is so special about consciousness? to be a genuine asymmetry between the mode of all-pervasive, self-evident, and undeniable. nism, evolutionary function, ontological status? George Miller thinks that perhaps the unique access to facts of one's own consciousness and the On the other hand, contemporary science tells After all, the third-person perspective is what is difficulty involved in the understanding of con- mode of access to facts about others' conscious us that the world is made up of nothing over and and has successfully been operant in the scientific sciousness stems from the fact that consciousness states. This asymmetry is what grounds the above "physical" elements, whatever their nature practice of the past several centuries, and no one is both the phenomenon we try to investigate and important distinction between systematic ap- (waves, particles, etc.) may be. Where does this doubts that it can provide valuable advances in the very tool we need to use to pursue this inves- proaches to consciousness from the first-person leave us with respect to the place of consciousness the understanding of consciousness. But the issue tigation. "Turning a tool on itself," he says, "may perspective versus the third-person perspective. in an entirely physical world? "How can tech- is whether such an approach is always doomed to be as futile as trying to soar off the ground by a On the one hand, nothing is more intimately nicolor phenomenology arise from the soggy leave something essential to consciousness out tug at one's bootstraps." He continues: "Perhaps known by conscious human beings than the way grey matter of brains?" as Colin McGinn asks the world (including themselves) appears to them. (McGinn 1989, p. 349). Can one accommodate a of its explanatory scope. In short, is there an Guven Giizeldere 26 Approaching Consciousness 27

unbridgeable "explanatory gap" inherent in the to describe an experience by stating its qualitative consciousness could arise from their physiological XTV The Two Faces of Consciousness Revisited 51 third-person approaches to consciousness, and if aspects as they seem to the experiencer. The fruity underpinnings. Deep down, this problem is a so, can it be remedied by the deployment of a character is directly experienced only by the per- manifestation of the gap that separates our direct The phenomenal and the causal characterizations crossbred conceptual scheme that embodies a son whose gustatory and olfactory nerves are ex- understanding of consciousness in first-person are merely expressions of what seems most im- first-person approach in the investigation of con- cited by the wine. As such, the experiencer has a terms, versus the objective, physicalist accounts portant, or primary, in the understanding of the sciousness? privileged status; she gets to have the experience, of consciousness given in third-person terms. The nature of consciousness. They are not, in them- whereas the listener only gets to hear the descrip- roots of this problem are indeed unique; no other selves, in opposition with one another. It is only tion. As far as the second method is concerned, phenomenon presents us with two distinct epis- under the dictum of the segregationist intuition First-Person versus Third-Person however, the experiencer and the listener are temic perspectives from which it can be inves- that they are considered essentially antipodal and Approaches to Consciousness epistemically on a par. The description of the tigated. Given this duality, how does the "causal mutually exclusive. The issue of how to locate the perturbations in the experiencer's nervous system characterization" of consciousness fare against its phenomenal and the causal characterizations The epistemic asymmetry inherent in the study of is open to public observation and verification, phenomenal counterpart? with regard to each other is central to the dialectic consciousness can be found as manifested under and ordinarily, no qualitative terms about the A causal characterization of consciousness can of certain ongoing debates surrounding the different names, roughly as variations of one an- experience (how it feels) need to be involved. In be given in many dimensions. One can try to ac- other and as occupying critical roles in theoretical "phenomenal" versus "access" senses and the other words, whereas the instantiation of the count for consciousness in terms of behavioral junctions. The notion of the first-person versus "easy" versus "hard" problems of consciousness. phenomenal properties of an experience is di- manifestations, or of its role and place in the third-person perspectives is one such contrastive By "phenomenal characterization of con- rectly accessible only to the experiencer, the in- general mental economy. The former approach pair. Yet another similar distinction is that of the sciousness" I mean a characterization given stantiation of its intrinsic neurophysiological was behaviorists' failed solution to account for subjective versus the objective, or the "phenom- 48 fundamentally in first-person terms, describing properties can be equally observed by many. In (or, rather, do away with) consciousness. The enal" versus "physical." episodes of inner life in terms of how they feel the latter case, what is at issue are the publicly former became a canonical characterization in or seem to the subject who experiences them. One way of describing a particular experience, observable aspects of the experience—not how it behaviorism's successor, cognitive psychology William James was interested in both the tempo- say, of tasting a particular vintage of a certain feels but what it does. and in functionalist schools of philosophy. kind of wine, would be to try to state how the ral and the spatial structure of consciousness, and The important question is to determine Behaviorism, in its explicit form, is no longer wine tastes to me—that is, what it is like for me to his chapter "Stream of Thought" (James 1950a, whether these two methods have distinct scopes around. But it is worth mentioning again how the have that particular gustatory experience. This pp. 224-290) provides an excellent example of of explanation and whether they are necessarily 50 most obvious difficulty in relying entirely on ex- is indeed the ordinary, even if not so easy, way. such a characterization. Apart from James and committed to distinct ontologies. I have outlined ternal criteria gave way to information-proces- It involves the usage of qualitative terms such the continental phenomenologist philosophers, two general approaches to consciousness, each of sing accounts of consciousness in particular, and as "fruity," "with a hint of tobacco," or "full- introspectionist psychologists were paradigmati- which respectively takes one of the two above of mental phenomena in general. Behaviorism left bodied," and the hope of conveying some sense of cally interested in the phenomenal aspects of ex- methods as primary. The first of these approaches no room for the possibility of the presence of what the tasting of that wine would be like had perience, and they relentlessly pursued the project takes consciousness "as consciousness seems" consciousness in the absence of external behavior. it been experienced by the listener. of "mapping the boundaries of the inner space of and, in accord with the phenomenal character- Put differently, the absence of evidence from the The other way would be to proceed by way of consciousness." Along those lines, Titchener de- ization, regards its qualitative aspects as the pri- third-person perspective implied the theoretical giving a description of the specific ways in which fined consciousness as the occurrent parts of one's mary components of any explanatory scheme. rejection of all experience that is generally char- my tastebuds are excited, my olfactory nerves are mind, accessible by introspection, at any given The second one takes consciousness "as con- acterized in first-person terms. Given that the activated, my blood chemistry has changed, and moment: "My 'consciousness' is the sum of men- most familiar aspects of consciousness have to do sciousness does," and, in accord with the causal so forth. This would not be the most ordinary tal processes which make up my experience now; with its phenomenology (think of James' stream), characterization, tries to account for conscious- way of describing one's gustatory experiences, it is the mind of any given 'present' time. We this result stood out as the most difficult one to ness in terms of what it does and the role it plays but perhaps one can overhear two devoted neu- might, perhaps, consider it as a cross-section of accept. Even many behaviorists balked at biting in one's cognitive economy. Put in different rologists talking this way to one another at a mind" (Titchener 1902, p. 13). the bullet and claiming that a person who is terms, one can call these the "first-person-per- conference reception. In any case, in the right But there is more to the phenomenal charac- sitting perfectly still with no vocal cord activity spectival" versus the "third-person-perspectival" context, it is clear that this alternative method 49 terization in the way "problem of phenomenal whatsoever (behaviorists' characterization of approaches to consciousness. The dichotomy of 52 would also be informative in conveying something consciousness" is understood today. In particu- "thinking") would ipso facto be unconscious. the "two faces of consciousness" manifests itself about the nature of one's experience. lar, the problem has now transformed into the This claim, it seemed, was readily refutable in in yet other distinctions and under other names, There is clearly an important difference be- exploration of explanatory laws that would ac- one's own everyday phenomenology. There 47 to which I now turn. tween the two methods. The first one attempts count for how particular phenomenal aspects of was, after all, an epistemic component to the Guven Giizeldere 28 Approaching Consciousness 29

phenomenon of consciousness that cried for a Once again, it is essential to ask at this stage ness because, Block maintains, animals without definition of A-consciousness is not, strictly characterization in first-person terms. However, whether these two perspectives are mutually ex- speech can have mental states of the A-conscious speaking, reductive, and it serves its purpose well behaviorism, in its attempt to associate con- clusive regarding their explanatory roles—that type.) Construed as such, A-consciousness fits with no need for ostension. Could there be some- sciousness and behavior conceptually, and thereby is, whether an account of causal consciousness well in the domain of propositional attitudes in thing inherent in the pretheoretical construal of fully externalize consciousness, left no room for provides us with no understanding of how con- philosophy of mind, and it is just the perfect sort P-consciousness such that it does not allow a talking about consciousness as it is experienced sciousness seems to the first-person subject, and of subject matter for cognitive psychology.54 nonreductive but also nonostensive definition? by the subject. Everyone smiled at the joke about whether an account of phenomenal consciousness P-consciousness is more problematic. Block More importantly, could it be that the particular one behaviorist's asking another, after having has no elements that figure in the understanding starts out his analysis of P-consciousness by way Block's distinction carves out phenomenal made love, "It was great for you; how was it of what consciousness does. As I will suggest be- stating the difficulty particular to it: "Let me consciousness, separating it completely from its for me?" but (fortunately) not many took the 53 low, my answer is "not necessarily." A further acknowledge at the outset that I cannot define causal and functional aspects in accord with the scenario as a serious possibility. question along this line would be what onto- P-consciousness in any remotely noncircular "segregationist intuition," renders its inves- A logical next step in trying to account for logical consequences the perspectival asymmetry way The best one can do for P-consciousness tigation by means of scientific methods theoret- consciousness in causal terms was to reverse the in the epistemology of consciousness entails. is ... point to the phenomenon" (Block 1995, ically impossible? Put differently, could we be behaviorist direction and, to some extent, re- There, my answer will be "not very much." But p. 230). The way Block himself goes about char- painting ourselves into a corner by a conceptual internalize the causal criteria of consciousness. first let me bring into the picture another dis- acterizing P-consciousness is either "via rough commitment to Block's distinction such that we This provided a groundwork for functionalist tinction, proposed by Ned Block, which aligns synonyms" or by examples. P-consciousness, as end up with a number of straightforward prob- philosophy of mind, and cognitive psychology. well with the distinction between the causal and expected, is what I have been referring to as the lems about A-consciousness and a conjured-up Under such a more relaxed framework, con- phenomenal conceptions of consciousness. phenomenal aspect of consciousness. Among the "hard problem" of P-consciousness that in prin- sciousness was allowed to be individualized by P-conscious properties that endow a mental state ciple admits no solution?55 This last question the role it played, as an integral component of the Access Versos Phenomenal Consciousness with P-consciousness in virtue of its having them leads directly into a related debate that has its larger network of mental states and processes. are, for instance, the way it feels to "see, hear, roots in the "explanatory gap" problem, re- With the promising application of computational Block (1995) distinguishes between "access con- smell, taste, and have pains" and more generally, cently dubbed by David Chalmers the "easy and ideas and information-processing models in psy- sciousness" and "phenomenal consciousness" as "the experiential properties of sensations, feel- hard problems of consciousness." chology, it was canonically characterized as a follows: ings, and perceptions". Furthermore, Block process accomplishing a specific task, a module maintains, P-conscious properties are "distinct The "Easy Problems of Consciousness" and the with a specific function in a cognitive diagram, or Access (A) consciousness: A state is access-conscious if, from any cognitive, intentional, or functional "Hard Problem" an abstract property of the overall system. Here is in virtue of one's having the state, a representation of its property" (p. 230). a paradigmatic characterization in the cognitivist content is (1) inferentially promiscuous, that is, poised Block thinks that it is not an embarrassment Chalmers (1995) characterizes the "easy prob- framework: for use as a premise in reasoning, (2) poised for rational control of action, and (3) poised for rational control of that he cannot provide a noncircular definition of lems" as those concerning the explanation of speech These three conditions are together suffi- P-consciousness. But why is it difficult to provide various cognitive functions: discriminatory abil- Consciousness is a process in which information about cient, but not all necessary. ities, reportability of mental states, the focus of multiple individual modalities of sensation and percep- a straightforward definition of P-consciousness, tion is combined into a unified multidimensional repre- Phenomenal (P) consciousness: P-consciousness is ex- and why should this not be considered a cause of attention, the control of behavior. Of course these sentation of the state of the system and its environment, perience. P-conscious properties are experiential ones. disconcertment? According to Block, that there is are not trivial problems at all, and labeling them and integrated with information about memories and P-conscious states are experiential, that is, a state is P- no way to give a reductive definition of P-con- "easy problems" should not be taken as down- the needs of the organism, generating emotional re- conscious if it has experiential properties. The totality of sciousness is not embarrassing given the "history playing their complicated nature. Rather, Chal- actions and programs of behavior to adjust the organ- the experiential properties of a state are "what it is like" of reductive definitions in philosophy," presum- mers's point is that "there is no real issue about ism to its environment The content of consciousness to have it. (pp. 230-231) ably full of failures. whether these phenomena can be explained is the momentary constellation of these different types scientifically." They can be. "All of them are Defining A-consciousness is a straightforward It is still not clear, however, whether the in- of information. (Thatcher and John 1977, p. 294) ability to define P-consciousness reductively is straightforwardly vulnerable to explanation in matter. In the case of human beings, A-con- terms of computational or neural mechanisms" What is important to note here is that this char- sufficient reason to think that the only other al- sciousness is a cognitively interwoven aspect of (p. 201). What makes "the hard problem" of acterization is given largely in a third-person per- ternative must be an ostensive definition. Even if mental life, underlain by three crucial capacities consciousness a different kind of problem is, spective. Consciousness is identified with what it it is, it may be useful to ask why the definition of centered around rationality: rational cogitation, Chalmers maintains, its resistance to all the does but not necessarily how it feels to the experi- P-consciousness is, unlike other definitions, thus speech, and action. (For the general case, not all methods that explain, or have the potential to encing subject. three conditions are necessary for A-conscious- obliged to ostention. In the case of A-conscious- ness, there seems to be no such problem. Block's explain, the rest of the problems. Put differently, Guven Guzeldere 30 Approaching Consciousness 31

there is a different kind of problem about con- philosophy. The first has to do with how to bridge The most influential assumption about conscious- Notice that the How question seems to be a sciousness that may evade the successes of all the explanatory gap between physical mechanism ness, as evidenced by the diversity of the literature, further question, the answer to which may not be standard scientific advances. Such a problem and phenomenal appearance, or brain and mind, is that what makes it a tough nut to crack is in completely revealed even if all the previous four would be a hard problem indeed. What is it? as discussed in the "Mystery of Consciousness" some crucial way related to those properties of W questions are already adequately answered. According to Chalmers, "The really hard section in section I. The second asks whether all consciousness that have to do with its phenomenal The answei to the How question may involve the problem is the problem of experience." More the activity on the "physical" side could go on aspect. Problems such as the irreducibility of con- postulation of, in Chalmers's terms, an extra in- specifically, it is the "subjective" aspect of every as usual in the total absence of any counterpart sciousness, its imminent subjectivity, the status of gredient, which makes the question difficult in a experience that resists explanation. The notion of phenomenology. The former question is based on its relation to its physical underpinnings, and so on unique way. Even when all the underpinnings "subjective aspect" is given, as Block does, in Levine's (1983, 1993) original formulation of the all relate to the phenomenal side of consciousness. of consciousness, including its medium, locus, Nagelian terms: There is something it is like to be problem of the "explanatory gap," which has an- In order to get into some of the inner structure and mechanism, are revealed, and conscious and a conscious organism and have experiences. In tecedents in considerations raised by Saul Kripke of this difficulty, consider the following five ques- nonconscious things are, at least according to other words, "what it is like to be" constitutes (1980) and Thomas Nagel (1974, 1986) (though tions, which I will call the four W questions and some operational definition, properly categorized the subjective character of the experiences of the reaching different conclusions). The latter ques- Otis further-How question of consciousness: and explained, a further question may remain: organism in question. This much is also in line tion is a version of the so-called absent qualia Just how is it that one experiences the particular with Block's characterization of phenomenal problem.36 Similar considerations also underlie 1. What are the media and mechanisms of con- sort of phenomenal quality that one does, rather consciousness. what William Seager (1991) calls the ultimate sciousness? Can consciousness occur in any type than a different quality, or even none at all? I will give a sorted-out schema of the theoret- problem of consciousness. He asks: "Why is it so of material substance, or does it have to have a Or, more generally, how does any physical ically interwoven notions of "phenomenal as- hard to think about consciousness, to formulate specific kind of underpinning (e.g., a carbon- mechanism give rise to any kind of phenomenal pect," "subjective character," and "what it is like reasonable models of the relation of particular based molecular structure)? And what are the experience? Because of this extra ingredient to be" in section XVI below. For now, it is useful modes of consciousness to their physical bases?" underlying mechanisms that facilitate conscious- seemingly inherent in the How question, I call it to observe that the line that separates Chalmers's The answer Seager offers, in agreement with ness? Has further-How question. "easy" and "hard" problems is the counterpart of Nagel, has to do with the uniqueness of conscious- 2. Where is, if anywhere, the locus of conscious- As must be clear from the formulation of the the line that separates "access" and "phenom- ness as a phenomenon: "There is no model by ness? Can consciousness be localized in a specific further-How question, the difficulty surrounding enal" consciousness in Block, which also mirrors which we can satisfactorily understand the rela- organ, the brain (or a module in the brain), or is it the extra ingredient, the gap that remains not the distinction between the causal versus phe- tion between conscious experience and subvening endemic to the whole of the nervous system? bridged, owes its difficulty to the phenomenal as- nomenal characterizations of consciousness out- physical state since this relation is absolutely Where is the seat of consciousness? pect of consciousness. The further-How question lined earlier. Given these distinctions Chalmers unique in nature" (pp. 223-234). 3. Who can be said to be a conscious being? is generally considered to be categorically more states the "hard problem" as the problem of Before discussing the status of the hard prob- Using consciousness as a type-identifying pred- difficult compared to the other four—hence the bridging the explanatory gap between accounts of lem further, let me first sketch a larger framework icate, one can ask: Is a chimp, a spider, a pro- dubbing: "the hard problem of consciousness" versus the rest, the "easy problems." the causal-functional (physical) kind and the oc- in which a number of relevant questions can be tozoan, or a robot conscious or nonconscious? currence of specific phenomenal aspects. He asks: located and pursued. This framework will also (In a slightly different sense of consciousness, one It is important to notice that the term extra be useful in revealing just how much explanation can also ask of a person in a coma, or in sleep, or ingredient can carry greatly different theoretical Even when we have explained the performance of all the along one question-path can be useful in explain- weights. For instance, the missing extra in- cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of in a petit mal seizure whether she is conscious or experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, ing issues in neighboring problems. unconscious.) gredient may be merely explanatory, due to an undeveloped concept, or some other theoretical internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a 4. Why is there consciousness at all, and what is further unanswered question: Why is the performance of tool. That would raise only an epistemological these functions accompanied by experience?... This fur- XV The Four W Questions and the Further-How the role it plays in the general scheme of mental problem. But it may also mean a missing in- ther question is the key question in the problem of con- Question life and behavior of an organism? To put it in gredient in the part and parcel of the world, in its sciousness. Why doesn't all this information-processing evolutionary terms, which function does con- ontology. It has been suggested that the missing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? (Chalmers It is true that the enterprise of approaching con- sciousness serve such that it was selected as a trait ingredient is indeed ontologjcal, and conscious- 1995, p. 203). sciousness within a scientific discipline has tradi- in the phylogeny of certain classes of living ness should be added to the list of fundamental tionally been very problematic, largely due to the things? physical elements of the universe. For instance, There are two related questions Chalmers inadequacy of the scientific third-person perspec- 5. How does consciousness arise in, or emerge Chalmers (1995) claims that "a theory of con- raises, and the roots of both go back at least a tive all by itself as a penetrating tool for the study from, its underlying substance, structure, and sciousness requires the addition of something hundred years in the history of psychology and of the phenomenal character of consciousness. mechanism, in the way it does? fundamental to our ontology" and suggests we Giiven Giizeldere 32 Approaching Consciousness 33

take experience as fundamental "along-side mass, quantum-mechanical conceptualization of na- there is a further-How question in the way it is or their causal (but not necessarily functional) charge, and space-time" (p. 210; see also Chalm- ture" (Stapp 1996, p. i). formulated, isolable from the four W questions equivalents, because of the "special powers of the ers 1996). Nagel and Searle have respectively The study of consciousness can take any one such that no degree of understanding there will brain," which cannot be matched by, for exam- 59 made the same point in terms of the subjective of the above five questions as its entry point to shed any light on it. ple, digital computers. Notice that the question properties of consciousness, in, for instance, the investigation. Indeed, various people have made I do not know if there is a decisive way to settle here is different from those in the various absent following passages: attempts to approach the phenomenon of con- the metaissue at this stage of our understanding qualia arguments. The possibility being ques- sciousness by respectively addressing each of of consciousness, and thereby decide the fate of tioned is not one of non-emergence (i.e., absence) The subjectivity of consciousness is an irreducible fea- these issues. But the further-How question has the further-How question. I do not know if it is of consciousness in functional equivalents of hu- ture of reality—without which we couldn't do physics typically generated less success than others. As a useful, or even yet possible, to settle it at present. man brains or in human brains themselves. or anything else—and it must occupy as fundamental a It seems that the opposing attitudes toward Rather, somewhat symmetrically, it is the possi- place in any credible world view as matter, energy, matter of fact, it led to grim diagnoses about the space, time, and numbers. (Nagel 1986, pp. 7-8) "explanatory gap," thought by some, such as consciousness stem largely from pretheoretical, bility of the emergence of consciousness in /ton- Colin McGinn (1989), to lie possibly forever be- though (or perhaps, hence) deep-rooted and very brains. Conscious mental states and processes have a special yond the grasp of human understanding. strongly held, intuitions. Of course, it is crucial What about mechanism? Regarding the un- feature not possessed by other natural phenomena, The seeming uniqueness of the further-How to try to systematically examine and uncover the derlying mechanism of a very important compo- namely subjectivity. It is this feature of consciousness question, given the lack of apparent promising often implicit presumptions that these intuitions nent of consciousness, the binding of the various that makes its study so recalcitrant to the conventional directions to pursue it in any existing method- embody, but doing that also requires under- sensory features into a coherent whole in experi- methods of biological and psychological research, and standing what is currently known and accepted ence, the most promising recent results come most puzzling to philosophical analysis The world ology, led McGinn (1989) to take its conclusions perhaps too seriously. The very same consid- about consciousness at the present theoretical from the work of Christof Koch and Francis ... contains subjectivity as a rock-bottom element level—that is, understanding what is known In the sense in which I am here using the tern, "sub- erations, on the other hand, can lead one to think Crick. In "Towards a Neurobiological Theory jective" refers to an ontological category, not to an that there is perhaps something fishy about the about the four W questions. Each of these of Consciousness" (1990), they hypothesize that epistemic mode. (Searle 1992, pp. 93,95)" whole setup. The way the problem is presented W questions is interesting in its own way, and what underlies the phenomenon of binding is relies obviously on a set of presumptions about each has generated some fruitful thinking in- the pattern of synchronous oscillations in the The same idea has also been favored among the metaphysics of phenomenal consciousness, as dependently in different fields. Thus, I now turn brain within the 40 to 70 Hz range during visual 60 those who try to find fundamental theoretical well as the nature of scientific explanation. Could to a brief exposition of their current status, pri- experience. (See also Llinas and Ribary 1994, in connections between consciousness and quantum it be that the reason we seem to have no clue marily the What and the Where questions. support of the 40 Hz hypothesis in the context physics, as well as those who popularize on this about how to explain the further-How question is of dream experiences. Metzdnger 1995a explores theme. For instance, an interview with Nick that there is really nothing there to explain?58 The What Question how the binding problem relates to the integra- Herbert, the author of Elemental Mind: Human This brings up a metalevel issue: whether a com- tion of phenomenal content.) Consciousness and the New Physics, outlines plete explanation of the four W questions will in With regard to functionally characterized vari- Now, let's examine this hypothesis in light of his position as arguing that "consciousness itself fact leave some further aspect of consciousness eties of access consciousness, there is hardly any the distinctions introduced so far. Does it, for must be considered a 'fundamental force' of the unexplained, such that the further-How question suspicion that consciousness is medium indepen- instance, explain the access or the phenomenal universe, 'elemental', on a par with such irredu- will remain untouched, unscathed, and in need of dent. But regarding phenomenal consciousness, senses of consciousness (or both)? Since Crick and cible phenomena as gravity, light, mass, and this question is open to speculation. The func- Koch do not have such a distinction, it is hard to electrical charge" (quoted in "The Consciousness explanation as ever? To take up a favorite exam- ple of the Churchlands from the history of scienti- tionalist intuitions suggest that if the existence of know what they think. According to Block, the Wars," Omni, October 1993, p. 56; see also Her- all mental phenomena, including P-conscious- hypothesis is designed to explain P-consciousness; bert 1993). In a somewhat similar spirit, theoret- fic explanation, what can assure us that the further- ness, is a matter of the functional organization of failing that, it can explain, if anything, only A- ical physicist Henry Stapp claims that "an How question will not evaporate in time just as the elements in the nervous system, then the pos- consciousness. A true explanation of P-con- analysis of the measurement problem of quantum did questions about elan vital and phlogiston? sibility that consciousness is a trait that is not re- sciousness, Block maintains, has to explain fur- theory points to the need to introduce conscious- Note that this sort of skepticism against the stricted to carbon-based animal brains of this ther questions about why, for instance, it is the 40 ness, per se, to physics," stressing as well that a further-How question need not entail a defla- complete account of consciousness can be given tionary attitude toward consciousness in general. planet should be allowed. Denying this possibility to 70 Hz range and not some other. The discovery not in an "ontologically and dynamically mon- One can remain convinced that consciousness would be "neural chauvinism." of an empirical correlation does not suffice to istic conceptualization of the world provided by presents fascinating and real problems for philos- Perhaps Searle comes closest to claiming that bridge the explanatory gap between the phenom- classical-mechanics" but only "within a dualistic ophy and science and that this is already justified consciousness, and actually the mind in general, enon as it appears to the subject and what its un- in the history of its study, while not believing that can occur only in human and animal brains, derlying mechanism does. Giiven Guzeldere 34 Approaching Consciousness 35

This formulation is just another expression of But regardless of whether the further-How model of consciousness.63 The idea of such a could be, in nomological or just logical possi- the "hard problem" and, as such, falls in the pur- question is a well-formed formulation of inquiry, logical line in the brain makes it possible to ask bility, human replicas who nonetheless lack phe- view of the further-How question. Thus, while the there is a lot of work to be done in explaining questions about the temporality of certain events nomenal consciousness. I come back to this issue Crick-Koch hypothesis (so far as it is correct) the mechanism of how and where consciousness that take place inside the brain against the mile- in the discussion of epiphenomenalism. can be considered to explain successfully the What emerges in a given organism. James was perhaps post of the phenomenology of experience. Deny- Regarding the Why/Which question, the liter- question of consciousness for some, it remains es- one of the first "consciousness modularists" by ing that such a line exists makes it logically ature is somewhat barren. Perhaps this is partly sentially incomplete for the defenders of a Block- proposing that it was only a certain component impossible to impose a fine-grainedorde r on brain as a result of the fact that it is nearly impossible ean conception of phenomenal consciousness. of the brain that subserved consciousness.61 Al- processes as having occurred prior to or following to find any evolutionary role for phenomenal con- though it has always been in the scientific agenda, a particular experience. Dennett and Kinsbourne sciousness to play under the decree of the segre- The Where Question the belief in modularity in brain function has present a forceful argument against Cartesian gationist intuition, whereas the evolutionary gained particular popularity over the last decade, materialism; for them it is the whole brain, if any- contribution of consciousness, when it is taken as Is there a seat of consciousness? This question in especially due to the results coming from neuro- thing, that is in some sense the seat of conscious- causally efficacious in accord with the causal its various incarnations has been discussed from psychology. Recent discoveries involving certain ness. Today, the Where question, just like the characterization, is just too obvious. In other the time of the ancient Greeks. What was once the types of brain damage, such that the subjects be- What question, remains a hotly debated issue.64 words, so long as consciousness is characterized question of the organ of reason in humans (e.g., come deprived of only very specific, encapsulated as essentially noncausal and nonfunctional, ren- die brain versus the heart) has now transformed perceptual or cognitive abilities (e.g., prosopag- The Who and the Why/Which Questions dered an epiphenomenon that makes no difference into the question of the whole brain or a module nosia—the deficit of recognizing faces while in the world, it drops out of the pool of factors in it, and if the latter, which? almost all other visual capabilities remain intact), The question of who can be classified as a con- that have survival value, and thus becomes ex- As early as the late nineteenth century, James have provided support for theses of modular scious being is largely subordinate to the question planatorily irrelevant to evolutionary theory. had discussed the question of the seat of con- architecture.62 of what the underlying medium and mechanism This is the conclusion Frank Jackson (1982) de- sciousness and declared that the cortex, and not Extending this idea, one can transform the of consciousness are, at least in a materialist fends (using the term "qualia" for phenomenal the rest of the brain, is what is responsible for question of the modularity of mental function in framework. Roughly speaking, those beings consciousness): "[Qualia] are an excressence. consciousness: general into the question of whether phenomenal whose physical constitution (medium) allows the They do nothing, they explain nothing, they serve consciousness in particular may be subserved by a instantiation of those properties that indicate merely to soothe the intuitions of dualists, and it For practical purposes, nevertheless, and limiting the module of some sort. Tim Shallice (1988) puts the working mechanism of consciousness can be is left a total mystery how they fit into the world meaning of the word consciousness to the personal self forth such a view, and a modularity hypothesis safely allowed into the "charmed circle" of view of science Epiphenomenal qualia are of the individual, we can pretty confidently answer the 65 question prefixed to this paragraph by saying that the seems to lie behind Daniel Schacter's DICE consciousness (barring difficulties inherent in. the totally irrelevant to survival" (p. 135) On the cortex is the sole organ of consciousness in man. If there model, where consciousness is depicted as a sepa- What question itself). It is also common practice other hand, if consciousness is taken as a genus be any consciousness pertaining to the lower centres, it rate, functionally individuated box in the wiring in medicine to have a more or less circumscribed for different modalities of perceptual awareness is a consciousness of which the self knows nothing. diagram sketch (roughly speaking) of a nervous set of behavioral and psychological criteria to under a causal-representational characterization, (James 1950, pp. 66-67) system (Schacter 1988). Block is also sympathetic determine the occurrent presence or absence pace Dretske (forthcoming), there remains no to these models and calls the view "that treats of consciousness in patients (e.g., see the Roche philosophically puzzling question about its evo- James's view was based on the experimental consciousness as something that could be accom- Handbook of Differential Diagnosis on "Transient lutionary role. It would clearly be somewhat dif- results of his day, which showed a significant plished by a distinct system in the brain" Carte- Loss of Consciousness," 1989). ficult for any creature to survive without sight, correlation between cerebral processes and sub- sian modularism, in contrast to Dennett and Of course, the issue is not so straightforward, hearing, touch, smell, and so forth. (See also jective reports of conscious experience. Note that Kinsbourne's Cartesian materialism. especially when it comes to phenomenal con- Dretske 1996 for a discussion of what kind of James does not attempt to give an explanation of Cartesian materialism is the name Daniel Den- sciousness. Is there anything it is like to be a bat differences qualia make vis-a-vis judgments and how the brain can possibly subserve conscious nett and Marcel Kinsbourne (1992) give to the catching prey with its sonar system, or a dogfish beliefs.) Similarly, Armstrong (1980) attributes to experience any further than outlining the relevant general belief that there is literally a place in the detecting electromagnetic fields in the ocean, or introspective consciousness the biological func- mechanism. In other words, James does not seem a robot clumsily walking about in an artificial tion of making us aware of current mental states to be after anything beyond the ordinary W brain "where it all comes together"—something intelligence laboratory? The answers and, more and activities of our own mind, such that it be- questions. Clearly this sort of explanation does like a spatial or at least a temporal finish line that important, the advice on how to obtain these comes "much easier to achieve integration of the not satisfy those who are after the further-How determines the outcome of various brain pro- answers greatly vary. This question also leads states and activities, to get them working together question. cesses as a coherent, unitary, single experience. Dennett (1991) calls this the "Cartesian Theater" to the discussion on "zombies"—whether there in the complex and sophisticated ways necessary Guven Guzeldere 36 Approaching Consciousness 37

to achieve complex and sophisticated ends" In any case, given that the philosophical prob- seems the most counter-intuitive of all eliminati- Given this tangle, let me present the following (p. 65). See also Van Gulick (1988, 1989) for at- lems all revolve around the phenomenal charac- vist attitudes. That is why the question of phe- schema as a conceptual road map to distinguish tempts to locate a functional role for phenomenal terization of consciousness, it is reasonable to nomenal consciousness does not just disappear problems typically associated with phenomenal consciousness, and Dennett (1991), Flanagan focus discussion there. Doing so actually reveals out of the philosophical and, in other guises, psy- consciousness: (1992), Dretske (1995), and Flanagan and Polger that what is commonly referred to as "phenom- chological and scientific landscapes. I thus find it 66 (1995) for further evolutionary considerations. enal consciousness" is also itself a hybrid. Con- important to lay out properly each conceptual 1. Qualia: Experiences have phenomenal and Finally, Jaynes (1976) and Crook (1980) take en- sequently, it becomes imperative to bring the component that contributes to the puzzle. thus noncausal, nonrepresentational, nonfunc- tirely different approaches to the idea of the evo- analytical microscope over there and to dissect It is worth noting, however, that among all tional, and perhaps nonphysical properties. lution of consciousness (characterized in terms the different elements in the tangle of phenomenal notions that are associated with phenomenal 2. Subjectivity: Certain facts about experiences closer to what I called the social sense of con- consciousness. Here I present a conceptual road consciousness, one has particularly captured are subjective, that is, they cannot be completely sciousness). Searle (1992) tries to strike a balance map for locating various different philosophical philosophical intuitions more than any other—so understood except from a single kind of point of between defending a version of the essentialist problems, each associated with phenomenal con- much so that it has become the central notion view. intuition while assigning an evolutionary role to sciousness in one way or another. underlying almost any discussion about con- 3. Knowledge Argument: Certain facts about consciousness. Finally, a number of neuropsy- The term phenomenal consciousness is often sciousness during the two decades since its pub- experiences are nonphysical. chological accounts identify consciousness with a used interchangeably with a variety of others, lication. Unfortunately, it is also the most difficult specific information-processing module, in terms such as qualitative character, qualia, phenomenal to pin down or muster theoretical agreement To this, one can add the "base element" in the of a specific function it serves in the whole system. properties, subjective awareness, experience, and upon. I have in mind Nagel's (1974) notion of formula: Although the concern is almost never evolu- what it is like to be a certain organism. (See, for "what it is like to be" a certain creature, or sub- * Whatitisliketobe: There is something it is like tionary in such accounts, they can be mentioned instance, Block 1994, pp. 210-211.) This is a 68 ject of experience. to have experiences for a certain organism (or, here for their effort to find a specific function for bunch. And to make matters worse, each of these Nagel's notion of "what it is like to be" has simply, something it is like to be that organism). consciousness (see, for example, Schacter 1988 concepts is known for its notorious elusiveness. been so influential that it seems to have an omni- and Shallice 1988). But on the whole, there is Traditionally, the properties that go under the presence in several distinct (even if related) prob- I call whatitisliketobe a wild card, because it much about the Why/Which question that re- various names of "raw feels," "qualia," "qual- lems with regard to consciousness. In particular, gets alluded to in discussions concerning any of mains to be written than what is already there. itative character of experience," "phenomenal it gets pronounced in an intertwined way with the the three problems mentioned above. To have Having considered the various characteriza- aspect of consciousness," and so on have all problem clusters that can be grouped under the certain qualia, it is generally presumed, is what- tions of consciousness and the various questions proved to be recalcitrant to systematic explana- headings of qualia, subjectivity, and the knowl- itisliketobe an organism undergoing a certain one can ask about them, I now turn to the tions. Dennett points out that attempts to give a edge argument. experience; certain facts about an experience are examination of questions about phenomenal straightforward account of phenomenal proper- Nagel himself presents the issue of what it is subjective because there is somethingitisliketobe consciousness in the landscape of current philo- ties have typically been frustrating; "no sooner like to be a certain creature as a theoretical basis having that experience; and finally, whatitislike- sophical debates. does [the concept of qualia] retreat in the face of for establishing the claim about that creature's tobe having a certain experience constitutes non- one argument that 'it' reappears, apparently in- having a certain ontologically irreducible point of physical facts about that experience. I think, nocent of all charges, in a new guise" (Dennett view, which furnishes certain facts about the however, that it can be questioned whether this XVI A Road Map for Phenomenal 67 1988, p. 42). common denominator is not in fact theoretically Consciousness and the Unbearable Lightness of creature with subjectivity. For others, however, This elusiveness actually goes to the heart of vacuous. Perhaps whatitisliketobe has turned into Whatitisttketobe the notion of "what it is like to be" is taken to lay the particular and long-standing problem of phe- the ground for arguing for the reality of qualia, nothing but a wild card—a convenient way of nomenal consciousness, which is often labeled and for others, for the persuasiveness of the talking about any one of the three problems of As we have seen, the concept of consciousness is a a mystery. Elusiveness by itself is not what phenomenal consciousness, without, due to its hybrid that lends itself to several different char- knowledge argument which claims that physi- makes the problem persistent, however. Other- calism, as an ontological doctrine, is false. But the intuitive charm, having to specify anything fur- acterizations. Part of my goal in this chapter was wise, eliminativism could appear as a more ther. Then there would be no reason to look for a to tease them apart and treat them separately. nature of the relations among each one of these appealing option. Rather, it is our unique epis- problems is hardly ever spelled out in any detail. shared ingredient in need of explanation, above Having done so, however, one sees that the prob- and beyond the explanation of these three prob- temic relation to consciousness: phenomenal In fact, it seems that the notion of "what it is like 69 lem of consciousness is like a Chinese box puzzle; consciousness is perhaps the most difficult aspect lems. for every distinction made, one discovers that to be" has become the wild card of consciousness of the mind to give up. An eliminativist stance Nagel's original intention in introducing the further embedded distinctions are required. problems. I will henceforth refer to it simply as toward the phenomenal aspect of mental life the notion of whatitisliketobe. notion of whatitisliketobe was, I think, to use it as an "intuition pump" for instating subjectivity Guven Guzeldere 38 Approaching Consciousness 39

rather than as a tool to talk about qualia. Fur- XVH The QuaHa Battles absent qualia as follows: "The subjective charac- phenomenal consciousness has no causal powers) ther, for Nagel, the scope of applicability of the ter of experience... is not captured by any of the and thus to the possibility of "zombies" (human notion of subjectivity greatly transcends the The problem of qualia is one that surfaced under familiar, recently devised reductive analyses of replicas with all mental and behavioral attributes problem of qualia, or consciousness in general; it different guises in the philosophy literature during the mental, for all of them are logically compat- present save for phenomenal consciousness), as also underlies problems about free will, personal different periods. It is probably fair to state that ible with its absence. [E.g.,] It is not analyzable in I argue below. The possibility of inverted spec- identity, and the self, as well as the ontological terms of any explanatory system of functional trum, on the other hand, simply requires an in- 70 qualia was the single most recalcitrant notion that doctrine of physicalism. resisted the rising wave of materialists in their states, or intentional states, since these could be version of a particular set of phenomenal qualities The knowledge argument, formulated in con- program of giving an account of the mental by ascribed to robots or automata that behaved like in some sensory domain, such as the hues in one's temporary literature by Frank Jackson, is also people though they experienced nothing" (Nagel color space.75 means of identity theory. For example, J. J. C. 74 much closer in nature to issues surrounding sub- Smart mentions in his now-classic "Sensations 1974, pp. 166-167; my emphasis). But let us pause and ask the same question al- jectivity than to the problem of qualia. In fact, it and Brain Processes" (1959) that among the eight In a footnote to this passage, Nagel also enter- ready posed about consciousness: When friends can be seen as a logical conclusion of the diffi- objections he considers, he feels the least con- tains the possibility of the impossibility of absent and foes of qualia disagree about whether qualia culties Nagel raises about accommodating sub- fident in his answer to the one about phenomenal qualia, but rejects it: "Perhaps there could not ac- exist, are they really talking about the same thing? jectivity in a physicalist ontology. In a nutshell, properties. (This is Objection 3, attributed to tually be such robots. Perhaps anything complex The ontologically rather ordinary fact that phe- the knowledge argument is based on the claim Max Black.) Both U. T. Place (1956) and B. A. enough to behave like a person would have expe- nomenal properties of an experience exist only that certain facts about experiences evade all Farrell (1950), philosophers of the same era, note riences. But that, if true, is a fact which cannot be insofar as they belong to someone's experience physicalist accounts, and no matter how much that the identification of the so-called raw feels discovered merely by analyzing the concept of ex- (compare: geometric properties of a shadow exist one learns about the physical (causal, functional, with the straightforwardly physical properties of perience" (fn. 2, p. 167; my emphasis). But what only insofar as they belong to someone's sha- representational, and so on) aspects of an ex- the nervous system has been the most elusive Nagel merely asserts as true has no argumentative dow), when combined with the epistemologi- perience, some facts about how the experience component of the overall program of identity force against certain causal-state identity theo- cally rather extraordinary fact that experiences feels (to oneself, but more important, to others) theory in "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?" rists and some functionalists. For they take cannot epistemically be shared, and hence every- will remain in the dark until one actually has that and "Experience," respectively. Herbert Feigl exactly the opposite of Nagel's assertion (broadly one can have "direct access" to only his or her' experience. also wrestles with the same problem in his lengthy construed to include not only behavior, but also qualia, seem to make it uniquely, even surpris- Jackson attempts to establish this claim by manuscript, The "Mental" and the "Physical" causal, functional, and intentional character- ingly difficult to investigate the ontological nature means of a thought experiment that involves an (1967).72 ization) as a fundamental assumption. of qualia. As such, it gives rise to a wide variety of imaginary vision scientist, Mary, who learns positions regarding what qualia are. A second wave in philosophy of mind came For instance, David Lewis (1966) states: "The "everything physical there is to know" about about, this time that of functionalism, in the definitive characteristic of any (sort of) experi- In "Quining Qualia," Dennett, one of the color experiences without ever having color ex- 1970s. The problem of qualia was again on stage; ence as such is [by analytic necessity] its causal staunchest critics of the notion of qualia, tries to periences herself. Jackson's contention is that the phenomenal feels were considered the role, its syndrome of most typical causes and establish that "conscious experience has no prop- upon seeing a colored object for the first time in "Achilles' heel of functionalism" (Shoemaker effects" (p. 17). Similarly, the concept of a men- erties that are special in any of the ways qualia her life, Mary will learn something new, belying 1981a)—the only aspect of mentality that es- tal state for David Armstrong (1993) is that of a have been supposed to be special." He attempts physicalism. The pivotal issue here is whether caped the net of functional explanations.73 It is "state of the person apt for bringing about certain to show this by laying out what exactly it is that the having of an experience constitutes a special during this period that the problems of absent sorts of physical behavior," where he regards the he wants to deny in denying the existence of class of irreducible "first-person facts" or whether qualia and a reincarnation of Locke's puzzle of mind as "an inner arena identified by its causal qualia and sets up his target by identifying qualia what is lacking in Mary has to do with her ex- inverted spectrum reached celebrity status. Critics relations to outward act" (p. 129). As such, the with the "properties of a subject's mental states periential "mode of access" to facts that she is of functionalism argued that a functionalist relation between experiences and causal (and/or that are: 1. ineffable, 2. intrinsic, 3. private, and 4. already acquainted with (in the form of proposi- framework can provide an account of all compo- functional, intentional, etc.) characteristics is directly or immediately apprehensible in con- tional knowledge); on this point of contention the nents of mental life but cannot capture its qualia, taken to be, contra Nagel's assumption, inherent sciousness" (Dennett 1988, pp. 43,47). The final knowledge argument has generated a fair amount in the concept of experience. This kind of funda- verdict Dennett arrives at, after an elaborate 71 lacking the theoretical tools to settle decisively of literature. The interrelations between these questions about whether any two functionally mental disagreement where each side is vulner- chain of "intuition pumps" designed to show that problems need to be pursued further, but I will equivalent systems differ (e.g., can be inverted) in able to the charge of question-begging against the very concept of qualia is inherently confused, stop and opt for focusing on the most central their phenomenal aspects, or even whether a the other is a typical syndrome of the "qualia is an eliminativist one: "There simply are no player of the phenomenal consciousness debate: given system has any qualia at all. Thomas Nagel battles." qualia at all" (p. 74). qualia. (I will henceforth use "phenomenal con- gives a concise characterization of the problem of The possibility of absent qualia is closely re- In contrast to Dennett's eliminativist stance, sciousness" and "qualia" interchangeably.) lated to the doctrine of epiphenomenalism (that the spectrum of other positions with respect to Giiven Guzeldere 40 Approaching Consciousness 41

qualia extends from taking qualia to be non- "all mental facts are representational facts" and eveiprima facie doubt there is about the qualia of difference whatsoever between persons and their physical properties that require a new ontology to hence, a fortiori, all facts about qualia are also brain-headed systems" (Block 1978, p. 281). zombie twins except the fact that the latter lack reductively identifying qualia with neurophysio- representational. Dretske identifies qualia as As a consequence of this kind of general doubt consciousness. Hence, denying epiphenomenal- logical properties. There are also midway, con- properties that one's experience represents objects about physicalism, the scenario involving beings ism would also block the possibility of zombie- ciliatory positions. Paul and Patricia Churchland, (or whatever the experience is about) as having. physiologically and behaviorally similar to us, hood. That is, if we accept that consciousness has for example, agree that when qualia are construed As such, qualia do not have to be given a func- perhaps even identical down to the last molecular causal powers, then my zombie twin cannot exist, in the way Dennett does, the situation is indeed tional characterization or identified with neuro- structure and behavioral trait, who nonetheless even as a genuine theoretical creature. hopeless: "So long as introspectible qualia were physiological properties. Rather, Dretske locates lack qualia altogether, is considered a genuine The doctrine of epiphenomenalism has a deep- thought to be ineffable, or epiphenomenal... one qualia outside the mind, in accordance with his theoretical possibility. This step brings us to the rooted history. The philosophers and the psy- can understand the functionalist's reluctance to externalist theory of the mind. This view has the debate on the notion of zombies and the doctrine chologists of the nineteenth century hotly debated have anything to do with them" (Churchland and advantage of maintaining a realist stance toward of epiphenomenalism. whether consciousness was part and parcel of the Churchland 1982, p. 34). While promoting a qualia while remaining in a perfectly naturalistic causal network that was responsible for the deci- realist attitude toward qualia, they claim that framework.76 sions we make, actions we take, and so forth or XVm Epiphenomenalism and the Possibility of qualia will turn out to be properties intrinsic to Finally, Ned Block brings the qualia issue back whether it was just an idle spectator, riding along die nervous system, such as spiking frequencies in to the problem of "explanatory gap" and raises Zombies the causal processes, perhaps being caused by the brain. Construed as such, qualia cease to be suspicions about the conceptual machinery of them, but without exerting any causal effect on Consciousness epiphenomenalism is the view elusive, but their investigation also falls into the cognitive psychology to deal with qualia: "On the those processes itself. Perhaps, the idea was, we that (phenomenal) consciousness has no causal scope of disciplines other than philosophy or basis of the kind of conceptual apparatus now are all automata, since all of our mental life and powers and hence exhibits no effects in the world, psychology. In the Churchlands' words: "The available in psychology, I do not know how psy- behavior seem to be determined by our nervous though it may be the effect of some other cause functionalist need not, and perhaps should not, chology in anything like its present incarnation systems, in a purely mechanical framework, with attempt to deny the existence of qualia. Rather, itself. This doctrine and the possibility of zombies no respectable place in it for consciousness.78 could explain qualia" (Block, 1978, p. 289). Block are closely related. If consciousness is an epi- Thomas Huxley was one of the most influential he should be a realist about qualia [But, at is neither as sure as the Churchlands about phenomenon, that is, not essentially linked to advocates of such a thesis, known as the autom- the end], the nature of specific qualia will be whether the answer to the nature of qualia will causal processes, or is only a recipient of but not a aton theory of consciousness. The thesis was first revealed by neurophysiology, neurochemistry, turn out to be in the domain of neuroscience, nor contributor to effects in a causal network, then formulated to apply to animals, in perfect agree- and neurophysics" (Churchland and Churchland is he as optimistic as Flanagan in the promise of there exists the possibility that the same organism ment with Cartesian intuitions. Huxley put the 1982, p. 31). interdisciplinary methods to deliver a successful that is taken to possess consciousness could be matter as follows: "The consciousness of brutes Owen Flanagan, who believes that an effort account of phenomenal properties. Nor is he going through the very same mentations and be- would appear to be related to the mechanism of of triangulation involving phenomenology, psy- convinced that qualia can be accounted for in a havior even if it had no phenomenal conscious- their body simply as a collateral product of its chology, and neuroscience, which he calls the Dretskean representational framework. On the ness at all. Subtract away the consciousness, and working, and to be as completely without any "natural method," can penetrate the mystery of contrary, Block actually wants to raise more you still get the same beliefs, desires, motives, power of modifying that working as the steam qualia and help dispel it, follows suit in promot- general doubts about the explanatory power of preferences, reasoning capacities, and behavior in whistle which accompanies the work of a loco- ing a more positive characterization of qualia: any mechanistic, functionalist, or in general phys- the organism. But what you get is a zombie. Its motive engine is without influence upon its ma- "Those who would quine qualia are bothered by icalistic schemes to account for the presence or pains, tickles, and itches are all "ersatz." The chinery" (Huxley 1901, p. 240). But, of course, the fact that they seem mysterious—essentially emergence of qualia. His worry, in other words, is zombie does not feel anything, even if it thinks the real target was human beings and the nature private, ineffable, and not subject to third-person about how qualia can be accounted for as part and acts as if it does. Its experiences lack the of human consciousness. This is where Huxley's evaluation. Qualia are none of these things." Al- and parcel of any physical system, including (or qualitative feels altogether. There is nothing it is automaton theory differed with Descartes's in- though Flanagan does not necessarily share the rather, especially) a brain, even if one thinks that like to be it.11 teractionist dualism. Huxley's account of the Churchlands' conviction that qualia will turn out it must be so accounted. Block states: "No physi- Put differently, zombiehood becomes a pos- "brutes" was just a lead to make the same point to be properties in the domain of neuroscience, he cal mechanism seems very intuitively plausible as sibility only under a view that accords with for humans: "The argumentation which applies too concludes that "there are no qualia in Den- a seat of qualia, least of all a brain Since we nett's contentious sense, but there are qualia" epiphenomenalism. If we maintain that con- to brutes holds equally good of men It seems know that we are brain-headed systems, and that sciousness has causal powers, then the absence of (Flanagan 1992, p. 85). we have qualia, we know that brain-headed sys- to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof consciousness in my zombie twin, which is iden- that any state of consciousness is the cause of A recent proposal in accounting for qualia tems can have qualia. So even though we have no tical to me in every other respect, would make comes from Fred Dretske's representational nat- change in the motion of the matter of the organ- theory of qualia which explains how this ispossible, some difference. But by stipulation, there is no 79 uralism (Dretske 1995). According to this view, we have overwhelming reason to disregard what- ism" (pp. 243-244). Guven Guzeldere 42 Approaching Consciousness 43

In Huxley, consciousness plays no contributory a "friend of phenomenal consciousness" to a Dennett declares: "I cannot prove that no such take the idea of phenomenal consciousness seri- role in the causal chains that take place in the reconciliatory middle ground with a "qualia sort of consciousness exists. I also cannot prove ously and use it as a fundamental theoretical tenet nervous systems that totally determine the be- skeptic." Most often, the disagreement between that gremlins don't exist. The best I can do is to to come up with a clarified conceptual network of havior of an organism; it only gets affected by the the two parties comes down, for each side, to the show that there is no respectable motivation for terms that all go along with the umbrella term of neural interactions. In contrast, Descartes's idea charge of begging the question against the other. believing in it" (Dennett 1991, p. 406). phenomenal consciousness. On the other hand, of consciousness was one of an equally causally The eliminativists charge the defenders of phe- Of course, the situation on the whole (and the there may be good reasons to respect the words of efficacious parameter in the formula of mind- nomenal consciousness with believing in a fiction particular state-of-the-art philosophical under- the supporters of phenomenal consciousness that body interaction. As much as Descartes is and creating a philosophical problem out of it. In standing of the mind-body problem we have the only definitional way open to them is by os- thought to be the founder of interactionism, return, the eliminativists get charged with holding arrived at after twenty-five hundred years of tension. Being unable to provide a nonostensive Huxley can be thought of as having laid out the most preposterous philosophical fancy for pondering) is more nuanced than I have just definition is not, by itself, sufficient reason to a clear foundation for epiphenomenalism with denying their opponents' characterization of sketched. For instance, the eliminativist position pronounce the notion of phenomenal conscious- respect to the mind. The fundamental idea qualia. has more resourceful ways of undermining belief ness as theoretically illegitimate, and thereby about epiphenomenalism remained intact until As an example, consider Daniel Dennett, who in qualia, and the "friends of qualia" have in- promote its complete abandonment. The merits the present day, but what was then dubbed the is convinced that the notion of qualia "fosters tuitively appealing conceptual tools on their side, or shortcomings of an ostensive definition in re- "Automaton Theory" has been transformed into nothing but confusion, and refers in the end to such as the absent and inverted qualia puzzles and vealing the essence of a phenomenon have to be the "Problem of Zombies" in contemporary lit- no properties or features at all" (Dennett 1988, theknowledgeargumentNonetheless, neither side judged on its own ground, in virtue of its success erature. Of course, it is important to note that p. 49). Ned Block, as a representative of the other can help finding the other's theoretical maneuvers in providing conceptual clarity and theoretical even if we establish that it is the truth of some side of the spectrum, accuses Dennett of begging equally unconvincing. agreement in the relevant discussions. version of epiphenomenalism that makes zom- the question against (the existence of) phenom- The eliminativist strategy largely depends on It should be acknowledged, however, that biehood a possibility, there remain important is- enal consciousness (Block 1993, 1995). Interest- the deconstruction of the concept of phenomenal the strategy of revealing essences by means of sues about what the nature of this possibility is, ingly, the dialectic of the debate seems to be at consciousness, thus revealing theoretical tensions "pointing" has not delivered any kind of agree- for example, whether it is empirical, metaphy- an impossible impasse: the contention is at the internal to it. In different ways, both Daniel ment with respect to phenomenal consciousness 82 sical, or conceptual. These are subtle issues that I fundamental level of taking for granted versus Dennett and Richard Rorty take this approach thus far. The same problem appears even more cannot do justice to in the limited space here. denying the existence of a feature of mentality (Dennett 1988; Rorty 1979). Dennett does this acutely in thinking about the possibility of zom- Hence, rather than pursuing this line further, I that can at best be defined ostensively. Friends by providing a number of "intuition pumps," de- bies. How can you tell a zombie from a non- will step back once again and examine how the of qualia, as exemplified by Block, claim that signed to show that our pretheoretical intuitions zombie, someone who has absent qualia from background conditions for bringing the meta- there is obviously something in their mental life about phenomenal consciousness are far from someone whose qualia are intact? If zombiehood physical disagreement on the possibility of zom- that can be theorized about under the name being reliable and sound. On the contrary, as is a possibility, not only could your closest friend biehood (just like the disagreement on the status "phenomenal consciousness," while the qualia Dennett attempts to show, our commonsense turn out to be a zombie, without anyone's of phenomenal consciousness) can be brought to skeptics, as exemplified by Dennett, state that grasp of the facts about phenomenal conscious- knowledge or awareness, so could you, and not a settlement.80 there is no such thing to point at in their own ness can result in such conceptual dilemmas that know it yourself. Zombiehood brings with it not experience.81 it might be a better strategy to abandon any talk only the problem of other minds, and thus third- This is unfortunately the kind of philosophical about phenomenal properties altogether. Dennett person skepticism, but first-person skepticism as XIX Stalemate: How to Settle the Phenomenal junction at which most worthy disagreements hit is quite straightforward in this approach; he says: well. If you, the reader of these lines, suddenly Consciousness Dispute? rock bottom. Neither side is willing to concede "I want to make it just as uncomfortable for turned into a zombie, no one would notice any their own point, and moreover neither side seems anyone to talk of qualia—or 'raw feels' or 'phe- difference, and in a significant sense of "notic- There are a variety of positions on the ontological to have any way of demonstrating the validity of nomenal properties' or 'subjective and intrinsic ing," neither would you. Remember that know- status of phenomenal consciousness in the liter- their claim. In another statement on the side of properties' or 'the qualitative character' or expe- ing, judging, thinking, and being aware of—in ature, all the way from substance dualism to the friends of phenomenal consciousness, John rience—with the standard presumption that they, a nonphenomenal sense—are all capabilities property dualism, to reductionism (via some Searle satirically asks: "How, for example, would and everyone else, knows what on earth they are granted to a zombie, and furthermore, "there is form of identity thesis), to eliminativism (usually one go about refuting the view that consciousness talking about" (Dennett 1988, p. 43). no need to invoke qualia in the explanation of coupled with some kind of antirealist stance), to does not exist? Should I pinch its adherents to re- If there indeed is a conceptual disarray sur- how we ascribe mental states to ourselves [be- representationalism (maintaining a naturalized mind them that they are conscious? Should I rounding the notion of phenomenal conscious- cause a zombie] after all, ascribes himself the realism). However, the literature does not contain pinch myself and report the results in the Journal ness, it seems only fair to demand from those who same qualia; it's just that he's wrong about it" any knock-down argument that would convince of Philosophy?' (Searle 1992, p. 8). In contrast, Guven Giizeldere 44 Approaching Consciousness 45

(Chahners 1993; Chalmers 1996 embraces the conception of phenomenal consciousness based study of) consciousness, and to the distinction tology to include consciousness as a fundamental consequences of this result under the title "the on the integrationist intuition—not one that elim- between first-person and third-person points of element could indeed relieve one of the nagging paradox of phenomenal judgement"). inates phenomenal consciousness but not one view. This duality between points of view with problem of having to bridge mechanism and ex- Thus, to the extent that "seemings" of your that renders it completely inefficacious, or opaque respect to accessing facts about experiences also perience (by emergence, reduction, elimination, own phenomenal states are constituted by self- even from the first-person perspective either. manifests itself in a duality in characterizing con- and so forth) or vice versa. Others think that the ascriptive judgments, beliefs, thoughts, memo- Rather, the conception should take the first-per- sciousness, in causal versus phenomenal terms. epistemological nature of the explanatory gap son characterization of experience seriously and ries, expectations, and so forth about those states Taking these characterizations as mutually ex- does not warrant ontological conclusions. Al- support the commonsense understanding of phe- (and no doubt there is a significant extent to clusive, based on the presumption that phenom- though I cannot go into this debate in any further nomenal consciousness. which such seemings are so constituted), it would enal consciousness is essentially phenomenal and detail here, I too would like to lend my support to be warranted to say that your inner life would The bottom line of what seems most unaccep- essentially noncausal, yields what I called the this latter position. True, in the presence of the continue to seem the same to you, despite the fact table here is the fact that under a framework that segregationist intuition. Opposing it is the in- explanatory gap, the link between experience and that you would cease to have any genuine phe- allows for the possibility of zombies, phenom- tegrationist intuition, which maintains that phe- its physical underpinnings may seem arbitrary, nomenal states once you turned into a zombie. enal consciousness is to be regarded as making nomenal consciousness can only be characterized but I think that the decision to introduce a new Put differently, according to the zombie hypoth- no difference, in an epistemically significant by means of all causal, functional, or repre- fundamental element into the ontology, based esis, you could now be "hallucinating" your own sense, even in the first person. That is, a well- sentational elements. Given these two intuitions, on the explanatory gap, seems equally arbitrary phenomenology. You would, ex hypothesi, be intended effort to promote phenomenal con- I briefly argued that the former plays into the as well. At least I fail to see how the most confidently judging that nothing changed in your sciousness by conceptually separating it from all hands of the doctrine of epiphenomenalism, steadfast belief in a thus-expanded new ontol- inner life, and be mistaken about it, but you causal and representational properties actually which, when combined with considerations from ogy would leave one less puzzled about just would never be able to find this out. Indeed, for yields a position with the opposite theoretical the possibility of absent qualia and zombiehood, how consciousness relates to its physical under- all you know, your present existence on earth consequence: the demotion of phenomenal con- leads us into untenable and noncommonsensical pinnings, hence diminishing the explanatory gap could be continuing in alternating phases of sciousness to a ghostly existence. If it is this sort conceptions of phenomenal consciousness. This is and explaining away the further-How question. humanhood versus zombiehood, switching every of a property that we talk about when we con- good evidence, on the other hand, to take What seems the most promising direction in other minute. Hmm sider phenomenal consciousness, would we really 83 the latter seriously and use it as the pretheore- reapproaching consciousness and pursuing its Coming back to a distinction I introduced at lose much (anything) by doing away with it? tical basis in reexamining our notion of phenom- deep-rooted problems in the present era involves the beginning of this chapter, it is also important And if we are committed to (internal) "pointing" enal consciousness.84' rethinking epistemology and conceptual schemes to note that the segregationist intuition plays into as the only reliable way to verify the existence Another domain where the epistemic element (as opposed to a priori postulation of new ontol- the hands of epiphenomenalism and the possi- of phenomenal consciousness, the knowledge of perspectivity figures in is the problem of the ogy) to yield a cross-fertilization of the first- bility of zombiehood. Characterizing conscious- of the absence or presence of which is hidden explanatory gap and the question of the "hard person and third-person perspectives, which ness in essentially noncausal (nonfunctional, even from the first-person perspective, that is, problem" of consciousness. There seems to be would allow theorizing about how causal efficacy nonrepresentational) terms leaves no epistemic to the person who has it, should we perhaps an unbridged gap in the explanation of how figures in how consciousness feels, and how phe- hook for making it possible to detect the presence not reconsider our very concept of phenomenal physical embodiment and conscious experience nomenal quality relates to what consciousness or absence of phenomenal consciousness, even consciousness? are linked. The former is in general given a causal does. from a first-person perspective. characterization from a third-person perspective, In any case, at present it just does not seem as if But if we are to accept the possibility that any XX In Place of a Conclusion the latter a phenomenal characterization in first- there is a way to settle the dispute decisively about one of us can be a zombie and not know it, that is, person terms. It seems that under our existing the "hard problem" or the consequences of the if any one of us can be totally lacking phenomenal I would like to leave the reader with the two conceptual scheme, bolstered by the segregation- explanatory gap. And given the troublesome consciousness while not being able to find out questions I just posed above. But let me also give ist intuition, the "hard problem" just does not, stalemate over the ontological nature of phe- about it, how can we possibly expect a stalemate a brief recapitulation and try to tie some of the and cannot, lend itself to a solution. nomenal consciousness, we seem to be not quite over the ontology of phenomenon consciousness loose ends. What is important to note here is that the ex- near a satisfactory understanding of the phenom- to be resolved, while fundamentally relying on I started by noting an epistemological asym- planatory gap, in the way it is set up, stems from enon. If anything, the survey of the contemporary ostention for its presence? metry in the way one has access to (the facts an epistemological issue. The further question issues and current debates surrounding con- The stalemate seems unresolvable under the about) one's own experiences versus those of that remains is whether its persistence is good sciousness points to a need for a careful re- proposed terms. Perhaps, then, there is something others. This asymmetry leads us to the notion of enough evidence to yield ontological conclusions. examination of our pretheoretical intuitions and fundamentally misleading here, and it is time to perspectivity, something quite unique to (the Some think yes; introducing an "extra ingredient" conceptual foundations on which to build better start looking for ways of building an alternative into the picture and thus augmenting one's on- accounts of consciousness. It also seems probable Guven Guzeldere 46 Approaching Consciousness 47

that an entirely satisfactory understanding of con- tellectual history and, more specifically, in the analytic one hundred Stanford students and faculty, based on a comes about as the result of irritating nervous tissue, is sciousness will be possible, if at all, only when the tradition. Obviously, there is a wealth of fascinating is- two-dimensional matrix of mental attributes (e.g., the just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin ability to perceive, the ability to learn, intelligence, constitutive elements of a more comprehensive sues, questions, and approaches concerning conscious- when Aladdin rubbed his lamp in the story, or as any ness that lie outside this limited scope. This chapter consciousness) versus kinds of organisms (e.g., proto- other ultimate fact of nature" (Huxley 1866, 193). In- framework, in which consciousness needs to be should not be taken as an attempt to give an exhaustive zoa, spiders, chimpanzees, humans) seemed to indicate terestingly, Huxley seems to have removed the reference theoretically situated, are themselves better un- survey of all aspects of consciousness even within its a bias in our attributions toward reserving conscious- to the Djin (as well as Aladdin's lamp) in the later edi- derstood. And these elements include nothing less own scope, and certainly not as embodying the grander ness most exclusively for ourselves, while being more tions of this book. For instance, in the 1876 edition, the than causality, representation, indexicality, and ambition of covering all paradigms of the study of generous with the attributions of other mental abilities. same passage appears as: "But what consciousness is, personhood, and especially the deep-rooted di- consciousness. (Guzeldere 1993). we know not; and how it is that anything so remarkable chotomies between mental and physical, and sub- 2. The results of this effort were discussed as part of 5. This is, it turns out, a very tricky question. On the as a state of consciousness comes about as the result of jective and objective. As such, it is probably a workshop attended by anesthesiologists, neuro- one hand, patients with only cortical brain damage irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as any reasonable to assume, as Jerry Fodor likes to physiologists, psychologists, and medicolegal experts in make a striking contrast with those who further lack a other ultimate fact of nature" (p. 188). Too bad the Djin prognosticate regarding a complete account of Cardiff, United Kingdom, in 1986. Rosen and Lunn functional brainstem. For instance, a report on the di- is no longer around, for we could perhaps have wished rationality, that "no such theory will be available (1987) is an outcome of this workshop. agnosis of death, prepared by the President's Commis- from it to tell us if we would ever be able to solve the 85 sion, makes the following statement: mind-body problem. by this time next week." 3. Michenfelder makes the same point in another way, 7. There is a longer passage in Tyndall's "Scientific This being said, I conclude on a more positive in concluding, "Thus there are a variety of end points The startling contrast between bodies lacking all Realism" where he addresses the mind-body problem note. Presently, there is an impressive rising tide one might choose to answer the question 'When is brain functions and patients with intact brain stems in length, and concludes, in agreement with McGinn the brain anesthetized?' and there is no obvious basis (despite severe neocortical damage) manifests [a of interest in the study of consciousness, and (though in 1868) that it is "as insoluble, in its modern for selecting one over another" (Michenfelder 1988, tremendous difference with respect to responsive- thanks to recent advances in interdisciplinary form, as it was in the prescientific ages." Because the p. 36). However, cf. Nikolinakos (1994) for an opti- ness, and hence the attribute of life]. The former lie research, we are now in a better position to points Tyndall touches upon are so remarkably close to mistic outlook on the role of consciousness in anes- with fixed pupils, motionless except for the chest penetrate the mysteries of this great intellectual the contemporary formulations of the issues debated in thesia research. See, also, Flohr (1995) for an movements produced by their respirators. The latter the literature under the labels "explanatory gap" and frontier. By integrating methodologies and per- information-theoretic model of anesthesia where the can not only breathe, metabolize, maintain temper- the "hard problem" (e.g., the nature of the explanation spectives from psychology, philosophy, neuro- "threshold of consciousness" is determined in terms of ature and blood pressure, and so forth, on their own, between mind and body as opposed to other physical science, cognitive science, and other disciplines the brain's representational activity. but also sigh, yawn, track light with their eyes, and phenomena; the prospects for the mind-body problem and by keeping a mindful eye on the successes and react to pain or reflex stimulation. 4. If we go down the phylogenetic ladder—for instance, upon reaching a fully advanced neuroscientific under- failures of the past, we should be able to reach a from humans all the way to amoebae—where are we to standing of the brain; and the status of possible corre- higher vantage point and to see more broadly and cut the line and determine the bounds of the charmed On the other hand, the commission shies away from reaching any conclusion with respect to the absence or lation-based accounts of consciousness), I quote this more deeply than has ever before been possible. circle to which only those who possess consciousness presence of consciousness in patients of either kind: "It passage here in its entirety. (A more detailed discussion These are very exciting times for thinking about can belong? (The metaphor of the "charmed circle" is follows in section XIV.) from Dennett 1987, p. 161.) Chimps, dogs, spiders? is not known which portions of the brain are responsible consciousness. for cognition and consciousness; what little is known What about infants, fetuses, or comatose patients? On The relation of physics to consciousness being thus points to substantial interconnection among the brain the other hand, if we insist on experience of sensations, invariable, it follows that, given the state of the stem, subcortical structures, and the neocortex" (Presi- itches, and tingles as necessary components of con- brain, the corresponding thought or feeling might be Acknowledgments dent's Commission 1981, quoted in Capron 1988, pp. sciousness, is there any principled reason for stoping inferred: or, given the thought or feeling, the corre- short of requiring something further, such as a con- 161,160, respectively). I would like to thank my coeditors, Ned Block sponding state of the brain might be inferred. But ceptual overlay that makes possible one's situated Perhaps it is altogether misleading to think of the how inferred? It would be at bottom not a case of and Owen Flanagan, for many helpful sugges- awareness of one's own place and relations with others presence of consciousness in a binary fashion. It might logical inference at all, but of empirical association. tions. Special thanks to Fred Dretske, John Perry, (not to talk of the Cartesian res cogitans), as essential to be necessary to talk about degrees of consciousness, You may reply, that many of the inferences of sci- Roger Shepard, Brian C. Smith, and again to the nature of consciousness? The answers to these ques- which could allow one to say that normal human beings ence are of this character—the inference, for exam- Owen Flanagan, for teaching me what I needed tions are all up for theoretical grabs. are "more conscious" than those with brain damage, ple, that an electric current, of a given direction, will the brain-damaged patients more than those without a to know to write this chapter, and for their sup- It is also sociologically interesting to look at patterns deflect a magnetic needle in a definite way. But the brainstem, and so forth. port throughout the preparation of this book. in the common sense attributions of various mental cases differ in this, that the passage from the current abilities to various organisms. In contrast to widely 6. Even though McGinn (1989) cites Julian Huxley as to the needle, if not demonstrable, is conceivable, dissenting opinions on the attribution of consciousness the author of this by now very popular, colorful quote and that we entertain no doubt as to the final me- Notes to others, there does not seem to be such a significant (with no source), the credit belongs to T. H. Huxley chanical solution of the problem. But the passage variation in pretheoretic intuitions with regard to attri- (Julian Huxley's grandfather). In full, it reads: "But from the physics of the brain to the corresponding 1. The scope of my work has been limited to the philo- butions of intelligence, or perceptual capabilities. A what consciousness is, we know not; and how it is that facts of consciousness is inconceivable as a result of sophical and scientific paradigms rooted in Western in- preliminary survey study conducted on approximately anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness mechanics. 48 Guven Guzeldere Approaching Consciousness 49

Granted that a definite thought, and a definite mo- the connection becomes clear only when we descend able methods of theorizing about these entities are those and Italian (coscienza) that carries both meanings. Out- lecular action in the brain, occur simultaneously; we to the level of molecular description: till then it ap- commensurable with methods employed in the natural side the boundaries of Indo-European languages, the do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently pears as a contingent correlation. In the psycho- sciences (methodological dimension). For a compre- term corresponding to consciousness in, say, Turkish— any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us physical case we have no idea whether there is such a hensive overview of naturalistic approaches in epis- an Altaic language—carries a political, but not really to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one deeper level or what it could be; but even if there is, temology and philosophy of science in the twentieth ethical, connotation, in addition to the common psy- to the other. They appear together, but we do not the possibility that pain might be necessarily con- century, see Kitcher (1992); for a recent analysis of the chological usage (bilinf or suur, as opposed to vicdan). know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, nected with a brain state at this deeper level does present status of naturalism, see Stroud (1996). In any case, this little linguistic excursion gives no evi- strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to not permit us to conclude that pain might be di- In philosophy mind, naturalism is often regarded as a dence of a semantic taxonomy that systematically re- see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were rectly analyzable in physical or even topic-neutral close ally of two related but not identical views, materi- lates to one based on language families. we capable of following all their motions, all their terms Even if such a deeper level existed, we alism and physicalism, but there are exceptions. See, for 13. The following quotation, taken from the circles groupings, all their electrical discharges, if such might be permanently blocked from a general under- instance, Post (1987) for a detailed attempt to lay out a where the concern with consciousness has to do pri- there be; and were we intimately acquainted with standing of it. (Nagel 1986, pp. 48-49; my em- fully naturalist but nonreductive metaphysics that is marily with the social rather than the psychological the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we committed to a monism of entities with a pluralism of sense highlights this distinction quite eloquently: should be as far as ever from the solution of the The possibility of a permanent cognitive closure in irreducible "emergent" properties. See also Chalmers problem, 'How are these physical processes con- ' When you speak of "consciousness," you do not re- humans with regard to the understanding of the mind- (1996) for a somewhat similar view he calls "naturalistic nected with the facts of consciousness?'. The chasm fer to the moral conscious: the very rigor of your body relation is an intriguing idea. But when it comes dualism." For a thorough examination of the physical- between the two classes of phenomena would still methods ensures that you do not leave the strictly to taking this possibility as a statement of certainty, as ist program, compare Poland (1994); for contemporary remain intellectually impassable. objections to physicalism, see Robinson (1993). scientific domain which belong to you. What you McGinn does, it seems fair to question what warrants have in mind exclusively is the faculty of perceiving 11. As it happens. Miller is not the first one to think Let the consciousness of love, for example, be asso- this conviction, especially in the absence of empirically and of reacting to perception, that is to say, the psy- about placing a ban on "consciousness" in order to help ciated with a right-handed spiral motion of the mole- grounded reasons. In particular, there is a curious ten- chological concept which constitutes one of the sort out the tangles in related terminologies. Here is a cules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with sion between McGinn's confidence, on one hand, of his accepted meanings of the word "consciousness." quote from the turn of the century, by philosopher and a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, own cognitive ability to assert such a sweeping verdict (Pope Paul VI, addressing a gathering of scientists William James scholar Ralph Barton Perry (1904): when we love, that the motion is in one direction, on behalf of all human beings (at present as well as in for the conference Brain and Conscious Experience "Were the use of the term 'consciousness' to be for- and, when we hate, that the motion is in the other; the foreseeable future), and the aim of his argument, on in Rome in 1964; quoted in Kanellakos and Lukas bidden for a season, contemporary thought would be set but the 'WHY?' would remain as unanswerable as the other hand, which ultimately strives to attenuate 1974, p. i) before. (Tyndall 1868, pp. 86-87) confidence in the powers of human cognitive abilities to for the wholesome task of discovering more definite solve the mind-body problem. terms with which to replace it, and a very considerable 14. This distinction is not uncontested, however. Some, It is worth noting that equally dissenting opinions Put differently, McGinn wants his readers to simul- amount of convenient mystery would be dissipated. especially in continental philosophy, think that there is were also available at the time. For instance, Huxley taneously believe, as a result of bis largely a priori rea- There is no philosophical term at once so popular and no intransitive sense of consciousness: all conscious- (1901) states: "I hold, with the Materialist, that the so devoid of standard meaning Consciousness com- soning, both that our cognitive abilities are limited to ness is consciousness of. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, human body, like all living bodies, is a machine, all op- prises everything that is, and indefinitely much mote. It forever fall short of bringing a solution to the mind- is a typical representative of this view: "We establish erations of which, sooner or later, be explained on is small wonder that the definition of it is little at- body problem, and that they are nonetheless sufficiently the necessity for consciousness to be consciousness of physical principles. I believe that we shall, sooner or tempted" (p. 282). Hence, according to Perry, it is not powerful to foresee the exploratory limits of the human something. In fact it is by means of that of which it is later, arrive at a mechanical equivalent of conscious- (only) the ubiquitous familiarity with consciousness that mind vis-a-vis the very same issue. By the same kind of conscious that consciousness distinguishes itself in its ness, just as we have arrived at a mechanical equivalent renders attempts to give it a precise characterization or reasoning, isn't there equally good reason to think, one own eyes and that it can be self-consciousness; a con- of heat" (p. 191). definition unnecessary; the reason is rather the difficulty wonders, that the opposite claim might rather be true— sciousness which would not be consciousness (of) of the analytic task involved in doing so. 8. For a materialist response to Adams, see Lewis that it is more likely (or, at least not less likely) that we something would be consciousness (of) nothing. (Sartre (1995). will someday come to a satisfactory understanding of 12. A related term in Latin was conscientia, whichran 1956, p. 173). The origins of this kind of an essentially 9. Antecedents of McGinn's view can be found in the nature of the mind-body relation than it is that literally be translated as "knowledge with," which aj$^ intentional construal of consciousness goes back to Ed- Nagel's work in several places, although Nagel only we will ever be able to determine how far the human peared in English and in French as "conscience." mund Husserl's work from which Sartre adopted his points out the possibility of McGinn's position with- understanding will extend? (For a thorough critique "Conscience" also had, and still has, a significant eth- view, most likely Ideas (Husserl 1913). (I thank Ron out committing himself to it. For instance, he says: of McGinn's position, see Flanagan (1992), chap. 6.) ical aspect, which is reflected in another OED entry: Brady for this pointer.) 10. It is actually not a straightforward matter to give a "Internal knowledge, especially of one's own innocence, We cannot directly see a necessary connection, if 15. See Guzeldere (1996) for an analysis of how the precise definition of naturalism, and I will not attempt guilt, deficiencies, etc." (Cf. Baldwin 1901). Nonethe- there is one, between phenomenological pain and a creature and state senses of consciousness can be con- one here. Roughly speaking, I take "naturalism" to de- less, consciousness and conscience have been separate physiologically described brain state any more than nected by means of the "Introspective Link Principle," note the view that everything is composed of fun- words with quite distinct meanings in English, at least we can directly see the necessary connection between yielding various "higher-order monitoring" concep- damental entities recognized by the natural sciences since the time of Locke. In contrast, there is only one tions of consciousness. For other recent attempts to increase in temperature and pressure of a gas at a word in Romance languages like French {conscience) constant volume. In the latter case the necessity of (ontological dimension), and possibly that the accept- distinguish different senses of consciousness and sort Guven Guzeldere 50 Approaching Consciousness SI

out some definitional issues, see Lycan (1987, preface; However, this view is not uncontested. For instance, Cartesian view. See Schmaltz (1996) for a thorough ac- James's attitude toward the metaphysics of conscious- 1997b, chap. 1), Goldman (1993), and Natsoulas (1983, Alastair Hannay (1990) suggests that in Greek philoso- count of Malebranche's philosophy of mind. (I thank ness is reflected most accurately in Gerald Myers's fol- 1986). phy one can find, contrary to the skepticism expressed Tad Schmaltz for the relevant material and helpful dis- lowing remark, from his extensive study of James's life 16. My decision to address problems that bear only on above, something like a distinction between the social cussion on this issue.) and thought: "James wanted to hold that in one way the psychological sense of consciousness should not be and psychological senses of consciousness. According to 21. Labeling the seemingly opposing views of James of consciousness does not exist, but that in another way it taken to imply that the two subcategories are not related Hannay, Greeks distinguished between synekksis (pri- 1890 and James of 1904 simply a "change of mind" is does; yet he was never able, even to his own satisfaction, in interesting ways. In fact, it seems a philosophically marily ethical individual or shared knowledge) and probably too superficial a conclusion in terms of histor- to define the two ways clearly enough to show that they significant task to investigate the nature of the relation synaesthesia (Aristotle's variation of the "unity of ap- ical scholarship, and not quite fair to James either. It is are consistent rather than contradictory" (Myers 1986, between the social and the psychological senses of con- perception"), in much the same way as modern philos- important to note that James's denouncement in the p. 64). For related work, see among others Dewey sciousness—is it something more like a genus-species ophy proceeded in the seventeenth and eighteenth latter work is of "consciousness as an entity" rather (1940), Lovejoy (1963), and Reck (1972). (I thank Denis relation, or one of family resemblance, or something centuries. In alliance, Hardie (1976) argues against than the reality of "conscious states." Regarding con- Phillips, Imants Barass, and Eugene Taylor for helpful completely unique? It can also be questioned whether Matson, Kahn, and Hamlyn, and states that "it is ... sciousness as an "entity" has close connotations to pointers and discussion on William James's views on one can fruitfully give an analysis of one of these halves paradoxical to suggest that Aristotle was unaware of the Cartesian substance dualism. Even though there is no consciousness.) while eschewing the other. Nonetheless, for the pur- mind-body problem" (p. 410). According to Hardie, straightforward advancement of such a metaphysical 22. The claim of introspectionism's being well estab- poses of this chapter, I opt for focusing solely on the Aristotle was "the first psychologist, and for him psy- position in the Principles of Psychology, James's posi- lished here refers not as much to the soundness of its psychological sense of consciousness. Even if it may be chology without the conscious psuche would have been tion with respect to the ontology of consciousness is not methodology and theoretical grounding as to its perva- impossible to fully understand the social sense of con- Hamlet without the Prince" (p. 405). Ostenfeld (1987) entirely clear there. Hence it might be better to charac- siveness and preeminence in the field of psychology as a sciousness without referring to the psychological sense, goes a step further, and claims that both Plato and terize his 1904 article as marking merely the abandon- whole. To see this, one only needs to survey the mono- or vice versa, due to the conceptual disarray surround- Aristotle were dealing with the mind-body problem in ment of consciousness as a nonmaterial entity, not lithic psychology literature of the few decades roughly consciousness per se as a subject matter. This inter- ing the term "consciousness" such an analytic strategy much the same sense Descartes did and we are. This between the end of nineteenth and the beginning of the pretation is supported by James's own remark that he seems essential as a first step. debate, so far as I can see, is far from resolved at twentieth centuries: all major psychology journals are present. means to "deny that the word [consciousness] stands for edited by the protagonists of the introspectionist school, 17. For an exploration of the distinction between epis- an entity, but to insist most emphatically that it does 19. The debate about whether consciousness consists in all articles report studies involving introspection as their temological and ontological considerations, as well as stand for a function" (James 1971, p. 4). the question of whether a set of criteria to distinguish the higher-order awareness of first order mental states is primary method, and so on. Ironically, the same ob- the mental in general from the physical can be coher- very much alive in the contemporary literature. Among Even though this much seems quite straightforward, servation holds of the period that immediately follows ently formulated, see among others Rorty (1970a, those who defend this view, some take the higher-order we are by no means faced with an unproblematic ac- (roughly from late 1910s to early 1960s), except with 1970b) and Kim (1972). representation to be some form of perception (for ex- count of consciousness. In fact, James never quite works behaviorism substituted for introspectionism. ample, Armstrong 1980, Churchland 1988, Lycan out the metaphysical presuppositions and consequences 18. The status of the mind-body problem in ancient It would be interesting to pursue the question of 1997), and others as some form of thought (for example, of his view of characterizing consciousness as a func- Greek philosophy is also worth a visit. It is generally whether the fluctuation in James's life with respect to Rosenthal 1986, 1997; Carruthers 1989,1996). For cri- tion, as opposed to an entity. Moreover, the ontological argued that there is no single term in ancient Greek that consciousness occurred as a result of, or was influenced tiques, see Dretske (1993,1995) and Shoemaker (1994). turn he takes toward "radical empiricism" at around the reflects the counterpart of the Cartesian/Lockean con- by, the general air of dissatisfaction with the internal Despite the fact that such higher-order awareness ac- same period as the publication of his "Does Conscious- ception of consciousness, and that nothing like the con- conflicts of the introspectionist school toward the end of counts of consciousness have many promising aspects, ness Exist?" complicates matters. It is probably well temporary debates on the mind-body problem or the its tenure, which led to behaviorism's rapid rise and I have to'stop short of giving a proper exposition here. warranted to remark that William James never held problem of consciousness was ever in their horizon. For takeover of the intellectual landscape. Or was the influ- (A more detailed treatment of this approach can be a long-standing metaphysical position with respect instance, Matson (1966) claims that "the Greeks had no ence in the opposite direction? These are all intriguing found in Guzeldere 1995b.) I will also leave the dis- to consciousness void of internal tensions. At a cer- mind-body problem" (p. 101), and Wilkes (1995) argues questions, but unfortunately they lie outside the scope of cussion of "self-consciousness" (which is sometimes tain stage in his life, roughly midway between the that "[Aristotle] paid absolutely no attention to con- this chapter. underwritten by such higher-order accounts) out of the publication of the two above mentioned works, he sciousness per se" (p. 122). Similarly, Hamlyn (1968a) 23. This is only one (as it happens, also historically the scope of this chapter. went so far as to defend the plausibility of the immor- states: "There is an almost total neglect of any problem most significant) use of the word introspection. A num- tality of consciousness in an article titled "Human arising from psycho-physical dualism and the facts of 20. For Malebranche, although we can have a "clear ber of different phenomena have passed under the same Immortality," in the following words: "And when consciousness. Such problems do not seem to arise for idea" of our bodies, we cannot, unlike what Descartes name. For instance, toward the end of the last century, finally a brain stops acting altogether, or decays, that him. The reason appears to be that concepts like that of believed, have a clear idea of our souls or minds. Put Brentano and Comte argued that introspection, as a special stream of consciousness which it subserved will consciousness do not figure in his conceptual scheme at differently, we cannot know our minds through a clear second-order mental act that gathers information about vanish entirely from the natural world. But the sphere of all; they play no part in his analysis of perception, idea; rather we know them "only through consciousness first-order sensations, was misconstrued. Mill and being that supplied the consciousness would still be in- thought, etc. (Nor do they play any significant role in or inner sensation" such as "pain, heat, color, and all James agreed and proposed a model of introspection as tact; and in that more real world with which, even whilst Greek thought in general.) It is this perhaps that gives other sensible qualities" (Malebranche 1923, Elucida- retrospection: the examination of one's own mental here, it was continuous, the consciousness might, in his definition of the soul itself a certain inadequacy for tion 11: Knowledge of the Soul, pp. 86-87). As such, happenings retrospectively, through the medium of ways unknown to us, continue still" (James 1956, pp. 17- the modern reader" (p. xiii). See also Kahn (1966), Malebranche gives qualitative aspects of the mind a memory of the immediate past. (For details, see Lyons 18). Perhaps the historical fact of the matter regarding Hamlyn (1968b), and Wilkes (1988) for similar views. much more central place in his theory, in contrast to the 1986, chap 1.) A second, separate phenomenon that Guven Guzeldere 52 Approaching Consciousness 53

made its way to the cognitive psychology literature in produce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your introspectionism, and it constituted the third distinct In contrast, the ontological behaviorists were in favor the 1970s under the name introspection was the phe- apparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due angle of attack alongside with behaviorism and Gestalt of doing away with consciousness, or any aspect of the nomenon of reasoning about the causes of one's own to the fact that your introspection is untrained. The at- psychology. Unfortunately, I cannot go into a detailed mind, by identifying it with some piece of behavior. For behavior, in terms of one's beliefs, desires, motivations, tack is made upon the observer and not upon the ex- analysis concerning these three movements here. For a example, Lashley (1923) maintained the following the- and so forth. (For a seminal article that piqued most of perimental setting" (Watson 1913, p. 163). well-documented historical account of introspectionism sis: "The conception of consciousness here advanced is, the initial interest in this literature, see Nisbett and Interestingly, approximately two hundred years ear- and the debates and movements that surrounded it, cf. then, that of a complex integration and succession of Wilson 1977.) In any case, my analysis deals with in- lier, a similar debate had taken place between two em- the section on "Modern Experimental Psychology" in bodily activities which are closely related to or involve trospection only in the former sense. piricist philosophers, Locke and Berkeley, on almost Boring (1929), as well as chapters 1 and 2 of Lyons the verbal and gestural mechanisms and hence most (1986). frequently come to social expression" (p. 341). 24. Edwin Boring notes that no subject left Wilhelm exactly the same issue. The question was whether there Wundt's laboratory without having provided 10,000 were any "abstract ideas": ideas that are not of partic- 29. So much so that it is very rare, even today, to come Although the assumptions of these three schools are, data points (Boring 1953, p. 172). William James hu- ular things but of universal—"types" of particular across "consciousness" or "introspection" in any by and large, logically independent of one another, morously observes that if it had not been for the sus- things. In the following quotation, notice that Berkeley psychology or cognitive science textbook, or even psy- Watson (1913, 1970), an indoctrinated behaviorist, tained patience and the inability to get bored of the rests his challenge of Locke's position on this question chology dictionaries. See, for example, Corsini (1984) seems to have believed in all of them, arguing that the leaders of introspectionism who came from the Ger- on exactly the same grounds that Titchener challenged or Stillings et al. (1987), which contain no entries for time was ripe for psychology to discard all reference to manic part of the continental Europe, the enterprise of Kulpe: personal experience based on introspection. "consciousness," "awareness," or "introspection." consciousness. It is no doubt that a Watsonian universe 30. Naturally, there were internal disagreements, and would make life much easier for philosophers and psy- introspectionism could have never endured. "They If any man has the faculty of framing in his mind thus different schools, within Behaviorism, and not each chologists. It would, for instance, remove the epistemic mean business," James remarks, "not chivalry" (James such an idea of a triangle as is here described, it is in brand of the doctrine was as hardheaded. Most notably, duality in the study of consciousness by collapsing the 1950, pp. 192-193). vain to pretend to dispute him out of it, nor would I the analytical (logical) behaviorists (who were mostly distinction between the first-person and third-person 25. The nature of the relation and the degree of influ- go about it. All I desire is that the reader would fully philosophers, e.g., Hempel 1949) were interested in an- perspectives. Furthermore, by making consciousness ence between positivism and behaviorism are not un- and certainly inform himself whether he has such an alyzing meanings of mental terms in a purely behavioral ultimately an operationalized parameter in the domain controversial. Even though it is generally taken for idea or no. And this, methinks, can be no hard task vocabulary, whereas the methodological behaviorists of behavior, it would allow a set of behavioral criteria to granted that the two movements enjoyed a genuine ally for anyone to perform. What more easy than for (who were mostly psychologists) wanted merely to re- settle questions about who or what possesses creature status, the details of this received view have recently anyone to look a little into his own thoughts, and strict their research to the study of publicly observable consciousness. But, as is evident from the history of been contested by Laurence Smith. Smith claims, "With there try whether he has, or can attain to have, an behavior without having to attempt any conceptual psychology, life is never easy in the domain of mind. their common intellectual background and orientation, idea that shall correspond with the description that analysis or even deny the reality of the publicly un- Questions about consciousness remained a nagging behaviorism and logical positivism were naturally dis- is here given of the general idea of a triangle, which observable mental phenomena. issue during behaviorism's tenure, and they eventually posed to form some sort of alliance. But only after both is "neither oblique nor rectangle, equilateral, equi- led its prominent figures like B. F. Skinner to not only movements were well under way was there any signif- crural or scalenon, but all and none of these at For example, according to Edwin Holt (1914), "the acknowledge the existence of the phenomenon, but also icant interaction between them" (Smith 1986, p. 5; cf. once"? (Berkeley 1977, pp. 13-14) true criterion of consciousness is not introspection, but the rest of his book for further details). specific responsiveness" (p. 206). Since making be- adopt a conciliatory position in his later works. For ex- 28. There is of course a third, unmentioned but impor- havior the criterion of consciousness is not quite the ample, Skinner (1974), after stating that the common 26. In all fairness I should add that behaviorism did tant school of psychology that emerged during the pe- same as identifying the two, consciousness thus becomes conception of behaviorism as a school of thought that manage to bring in fresh air to psychology of the late riod of transition from introspectionism to behaviorism: "externalized" by means of a publicly observable mea- "ignored consciousness, feelings, and states of mind" nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at a time when Gestalt psychology. The fact that a separate account of sure, but the metaphysical question of identity is left was all wrong, concedes that the "early behaviorists an uncomfortable sense of containment within the rigid Gestalt psychology is not being provided here is cer- open. As such, the two phenomena could be said to be wasted a good deal of time, and confused an important introspectionist paradigm was rapidly growing. The tainly not because it is intellectually unworthy of con- coexistent, as Holt (1915) acknowledges in a later work: central issue, by attacking the introspective study of realization that psychology could employ nonhuman sideration. Quite the opposite, Gestaltists were very "When one is conscious of a thing, one's movements are mental life" (pp. 3-5). subjects and pursue research without being solely de- keen about the reasons for introspectionism's failure, readjusted to it, and to precisely those features of it of Undoubtedly, consciousness was not the only factor pendent on the linguistic data to be provided by trained and they brought a fresh new perspective on the basis of which one is conscious. The two domains are cotermi- that brought the demise of behaviorism. A different line introspectionists seemed, rightly, to open up new hori- which a large number of facts in the psychophysics of nous" (p. 172). Edward Tolman's position in his "A of attack, for example, came from the quarters of new- zons. This should also explain, in part, the rather im- perception could be fruitfully reinterpreted. Nonethe- Behaviorist's Definition of Consciousness" (1927) is born modern linguistics on the issue of explanation of mediate success and popularity of behaviorism and the less, Gestalt psychology shared many of the same onto- also similar to Holt's in stopping short of advancing a symmetrically rapid fall of introspectionism. Unfor- verbal behavior. In particular, Noam Chomsky's famous logical assumptions with respect to consciousness and metaphysical claim: "Whenever an organism at a given tunately, as I will detail below, behaviorism turned out review (1959) of Skinner (1957) is a milestone that the role of phenomenology in studying the mind with moment of stimulation shifts and there from being to constrict psychology into an even more rigid cast in shook behaviorism (in psychology) in its foundations. introspectionism. As a result, as far as the history of ready to respond in some relatively differentiated way comparison to its predecessor. For an influential critique of logical behaviorism (in consciousness in psychology research is concerned, it to being ready to respond in some relatively more dif- philosophy), see Putnam (1963). 27. John Watson would not miss the chance to put a does not constitute the sort of sharp contrast that be- ferentiated way, there is consciousness" (p. 435). (See 31. Of course, there were a few exceptions who spoke nail in introspectionism's coffin by alluding to this con- haviorism provides. Hence, the brief treatment also Tolman 1967 and note 43 for his position with re- up while the reign of behaviorism was still tight and troversy: "Psychology, as it is generally thought of, has spect to the study of "raw feels" in psychology.) Finally, the emerging clinical wing of psychology, the proved to be visionaries. Worth mentioning here is a something esoteric in its methods. If you fail to re- psychoanalytic school, also had its disagreements with Guven Guzeldere 54 Approaching Consciousness 55

lengthy discussion Miller gave on consciousness in his as the "Chinese room argument," Searle argued that no James (1950a). He fretfully remarks: "The distinction partite division of the conscious, the preconscious, and excellent survey of psychology as early as 1962. It is amount of information processing could alone provide ... between the unconscious and the conscious being of the unconscious. possible to recount even earlier attempts to break the a system with original (as opposed to derivative, as- the mental state ... is the sovereign means for be- 38. Cf. John Kihlstrom's work for a cognitivist over- silence, and directly or indirectly talk about conscious- signed, etc.) semantics (Searle 1980). Dreyfus's critique lieving what one likes in psychology, and of turning view of the various forms of the unconscious (e.g., ness, especially in the fields of attention, learning, and never focused on consciousness per se, but Searle, in a what might become a science into a tumbling-ground Kihlstrom 1984,1987). cybernetics. Cf. Hebb (1949), Abramson (1951-55), newer work, deals exclusively with the problem of con- for whimsies" (p. 163). As discussed in section XI, a 39. For a thoughtful discussion of the theoretical issues Hilgard (1956), and Broadbent (1958). See also Hil- sciousness in cognitive science, and in general compu- different line of objection is also raised, this time in involved, see Reingold and Merikle (1990). gard's remarks on this issue in his lucid survey, "Con- tational paradigms (Searle 1992). In contrast, a rival a Cartesian spirit, by Searle (1992) and Strawson 40. Another paradigm in contemporary psychology sciousness in Contemporary Psychology" (1980). For account of consciousness built entirely on computa- (1994). that makes use of the conscious-unconscious distinction an account of the "cognitive revolution" in psychology, tional ideas can be found in JackendofT's Consciousness Note also that in Titchener, talk about the uncon- is that of implicit learning and implicit memory, as well see Baars (1985) and Hilgard (1987), chap. 7. and the Computational Mind (1987). For a predecessor scious has switched to talk about the subconscious, but as implicit perception. The focus of interest in this of the information-processing accounts of conscious- there is enough reason to think that nothing theoret- 32. Years later, Alan Baddeley (1993), a prominent paradigm is on measuring the amount of learning and ness, see Donald Hebb's The Organization of Behavior ically significant hangs on this implicit substitution. This psychologist who has devoted his career to the inves- memory possible in the absence of subjects' awareness (1949), a work that came out of the behaviorist era but terminological variation stems from the fact that Freud tigation of memory, validates Mandler's insight in the of the stimuli presented to them. A certain branch of this anticipated what was ahead with foresight: Hebb argues and his contemporary, Pierre Janet, had an initial dis- following words: "I am rather surprised to find myself work became sensationalized in the media under the ti- to identify consciousness "theoretically with a certain writing about consciousness There are very good agreement that left them with two different terms {un- tle "subliminal perception" in the 1970s. For a thor- degree of complexity of phase sequence in which both reasons why the study of consciousness has been dis- conscious and subconscious), and each one adopted and ough and sympathetic account of the nature of this cretely ignored by cognitive psychology during its early central and sensory facilitations merge, the central act- perpetually owned his own term with a vengeance. But phenomenon, as well as the history of related research, years of development Why, then, have I changed my ing to reinforce now one class of sensory stimulations, this was more a result of personal quarrels between the see Dixon's Subliminal Perception: The Nature of a mind? In my own case, the strongest reason has come now another" (p. 145). two personalities than a genuine theoretical dissonance Controversy (1971) and his later Preconscious Proces- from the pressure of empirical evidence; I am an ex- 34. Note, however, that a curious passage in Des- on the nature and structure of that which is not con- sing (1981). For possibly the most influential recent perimental psychologist who uses empirical data to cartes's Principles of Philosophy suggests a theoretical scious. And so far as I can tell, there is no evidence that work in this area (especially in masking studies), see drive theory, and it has become increasingly difficult to commitment to something very much like Freud's un- Titchener's use of Janet's term, subconscious, rather Marcel (1983a, 1983b). have a model of memory that is at all complete, without conscious, which does not sit squarely with his explicit than Freud's unconscious is the result of a "conscious Naturally, there are also skeptics. For instance, Erik- directly or indirectly including assumptions about con- commitment to the transparency of the mind: decision" and a theoretical commitment For an illumi- sen stated quite early on, "At present there is no sciousness" (pp. 11-13). (Note, by the way, that Bad- nating account of the relation between Freud and Janet, convincing evidence that the human organism can dis- deley 1990—in many respects a very thorough book on The strange aversions of certain people that make see Perry and Laurence (1984). them unable to bear the smell of roses, the presence criminate or differentially respond to external stimuli memory—contains no references to consciousness.) 36. For an interesting discussion of the question of of a cat, or the like, can readily be recognized as re- that are at an intensity level too low to elicit dis- 33. The information-processing models of conscious- whether the Freudian unconscious is a "theoretical sulting simply from their having been greatly upset criminated verbal report. In other words, a verbal report ness, although not the only game in town, are still very construct" on a par with scientific theoretical entities, by some such object in the early years of their life is as sensitive an indicator of perception as any other much alive today, in psychology as well as in philoso- see Dilman (1972). And the smell of roses may have caused severe response that has been studied" (Eriksen 1960, p. 298). phy. For instance, Dennett's central claim in his most headache in a child when he was still in the cradle, or 37. Note that over time, Freud grew dissatisfied with More recently, Holender (1986) presented a negative recent Consciousness Explained is that "conscious a cat may have terrified him without anyone notic- his tripartite structure and eventually introduced the and rather controversial statement on subliminal per- human minds are more-or-less serial virtual machines ing and without any memory of it remaining after- new elements of the id, the ego, and the superego into ception, which also included a comprehensive survey implemented—inefficiently—on the parallel hardware wards; and yet the idea of an aversion he then felt for the picture: of the field. For a collection of contemporary position that evolution has provided for us" (Dennett 1991, the roses or for the cat will remain imprinted on his papers in this paradigm, see the special issue of Mind p. 218). See also Hofstadfer (1979), Hamad (1982), and In the further course of psycho-analytic work, how- brain till the end of his life (Descartes 1992), p. 195: and Language on "Approaches to Consciousness and Sommerhof (1990, 1996) for theorizing about con- ever, these distinctions (i.e., conscious, preconscious, Principles of Philosophy, pt. I, §9, AT, 429) Intention" (Spring 1990). sciousness in computational and systems-analysis terms. and unconscious) have proved to be inadequate, and 41. Searle also has an explanation to offer regarding the However, information-processing models of the mind Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any fur- for practical purposes, insufficient. This has been (and, a fortiori, of consciousness in particular) have not clear in more ways than one; but the decisive in- motivations underlying the sort of separationist view ther elaboration of this idea in Descartes's writings, that Fodor promotes with respect to consciousness and always been everyone's favorite. For example Hubert which would surely be relevant in better understanding stance is as follows. We have formed the idea that in intentionality: Dreyfus, in his well-known critique of the research pro- the nature of what seems to be an apparent theoretical each individual there is a coherent organization of gram and methodology of artificial intelligence, brought tension. mental processes; and we call this ego. (Freud 1962, There has been in recent decades a fairly systematic the whole information-processing approach under se- p. 7) 35. The controversy over the status of unconscious effort to separate consciousness from intentionality. vere criticism (Dreyfus 1979, 1992, esp. chap. 4, "The The connection between the two is being gradually Psychological Assumption"). Another line of attack mental states is multifaceted. Another staunch critic Later Freud (1964) gives a schematic depiction of the of the unconscious, though for reasons different from structure of consciousness, with the id, the ego, and the lost, not only in cognitive science, but in linguistics was developed from neighboring quarters by philos- and philosophy as well. I think the underlying—and opher John Searle. In an essay that later became known Titcheners' (that have to do with his stance against superego being "superimposed" on the classical tri- panpsychic views of consciousness), was William perhaps unconscious—motivation for this urge to Approaching Consciousness Guven Giizeldere 56 57

same referent via different "modes of presentation." sciousness, continental Europe was certainly more of a separate intentionality from consciousness is that we And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer Note, however, that Shoemaker's question remains not center than James's Cambridge. See, for instance, do not know how to explain consciousness, and we that it is seen by an eye. fully addressed until this answer is supplemented by a Brentano's chapter, "On the Unity of Consciousness," in would like to get a theory of the mind that will not 5.6331 For the form of the visual field is surely not satisfactory account of something akin to modes of his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Brentano be discredited by the fact that it lacks a theory of like this: presentation regarding qualia. 1874), a work that slightly precedes James's Principles consciousness. (Searle 1992, p. 153) 48. Of course, not all publicly observable properties of of Psychology (1890). A more detailed analysis of this Perhaps a piece of careful Freudian psychoanalysis an experience are intrinsic. There are often a great many sort was later given by Husserl. See, among others, his would resolve this issue for good. Lacking such ex- extrinsic properties that determine what the experience Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology pertise, I choose to leave the question open. Eye- is about that are equally accessible to the experiencer (1913) and The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Con- 42. Panpsychism is a deep-rooted idea that can prob- and the observer. Some think that all important prop- sciousness (1928). A more recent attempt along these ably be traced, in one form or another, back to Thales erties of experiences, including those that determine an lines, which comes from the analytic tradition, can be and other ancient Greek philosophers. Nagel (1988) experience's phenomenal character, are extrinsic. See found in Searle (1992, chap. 6). presents a contemporary discussion of panpsychism, Dretske(1995). 51. The idea of finding systematical bridging relations characterizing it as the view that "the basic physical (Wittgenstein 1974, p. 57) 49. There is a spectrum of positions with respect to between the "mental" and the "physical" in order to constituents of the universe have mental properties, establish explanatory hooks on consciousness was also Keith Gunderson (1970) also discusses this issue under these dichotomies that yield deep differences in the whether or not they are parts of living organisms" the driving factor behind the emergence of psychophy- the title, "The Investigational Asymmetries Problem" metaphysics of consciousness. Let me mention a few (p. 181). Panpsychism was quite popular as a metaphy- sics as a research program in the nineteenth century. and makes the similar point that "just as the eye does exemplary positions. Nagel (1979, 1986) takes the dis- sical doctrine among the psychologists (in particular, This is exemplified in, for instance, Gustav Fechner's not, cannot, see itself in its own visual field, so too, the tinction between subjective and objective points of view the psychophysicists) of the nineteenth century, includ- work where he sought ways of formalizing a logarithmic self will never, in its inventory-taking of the world, find as fundamental to important philosophical problems, ing such prominent figures as Gustav Fechner and Her- relation between the intensity of physical stimuli (mea- itself in the world in the manner in which it finds other such as personal identity, free will, and the mind-body mann Lotze. William James, in contrast, was never sured in "physical units"), and the magnitude of felt people and things" (p. 127). problem. Velmans (1991) posits that first-person and sympathetic to this view; chapter VI of James (1950a) third-person accounts of consciousness are comple- sensory experience (measured in "psychological units") Again, the point raised is well taken for consciousness contains a cogent critique of panpsychism (under the mentary, but not reducible, to one another. In contrast, as reported by the subject. (Cf. Fechner 1966, see also so far as one's own selfhood is involved in it, but it is not title "Mind-Stuff Theory"). For recent discussions of Dretske (1995) argues that as a "result of thinking about Boring 1942 and Hilgard 1987, chap. 4.) The same idea obvious just how it generalizes into a difficulty (much panpsychism in the context of ongoing consciousness the mind in naturalistic terms, subjectivity becomes was also operative in Gestalt psychology in the hy- less an impossibility) with the study of consciousness in debates, see Seager (1995) and Hut and Shepard (1996). part of the objective order. For materialists, this is as it pothesizing of a relation of isomorphism between general by (other) conscious beings. "the structural characteristics of brain processes and 43. The origins of the term raw feels goes back, so far should be" (p. 65). This is in accord with an earlier 45. This observation is intended to be ontologically of related phenomenal events" (K6hler 1971, p. 81; see as I can trace, to the work of behaviorist psychologist statement by Lashley (1923), who claims that "the sub- neutral. The emphasis here is on the "mode of access" also Kohler 1980 and Boring 1929, chap. 22). Edward Tolman. In outlining what falls outside the jective and objective descriptions are not descriptions part and not on the "facts" themselves. In particular, it scope of "scientific psychology," Tolman (1967) char- from two essentially different points of view, or de- 52. John Searle presents a major attack on behaviorist does not entail the existence of a special class of facts, acterizes raw feels (from his opponents' perspective) scriptions of two different aspects, but simply descrip- theories of consciousness in his Rediscovery of the Mind, "first-person facts," on the basis of an assumption of as follows: "Sensations, says the orthodox mentalist, tions of the same thing with different degrees of arguing for what he dubs "the principle of the in- ontological difference between facts of one's own con- are more than discriminanda-expectations, whether accuracy and detail" (p. 338). Papineau (1993) argues dependence of consciousness and behavior." His thesis sciousness and those of others. indicated by verbal introspection or by discrimination- that it is a mistake to think that first-person and third- is that "the capacity of the brain to cause consciousness box experiments. They are in addition immediate 46. Of course, technically speaking, it is not possible person thoughts refer to different entities on the basis of is conceptually distinct from its capacity to cause motor mental givens, 'raw feels'. They are unique subjective to digest food in someone else's stomach either, but an epistemic difference, and calls it the "antipathetic behavior." One consequence he draws from this thesis is suffusions in the mind" (Tolman 1967, pp. 250-251). "digestive epistemology" just does not seem to be a fallacy." Finally, Perry (1979,1993) examines the status that "a system could have consciousness without be- But it is probably Herbert Feigl (1967) who is responsi- fashionable topic these days. of the first-person in relation to the role of indexicality havior." Under certain qualifications, I find this view ble for the introduction and wide acceptance of raw feels 47. Perhaps the most succinct expression of this dif- in mind and language. Also, for two alternative ap- plausible. However, Searle goes further to claim that in the philosophical terminology. ference is given in Sydney Shoemaker's question: "If proaches, see Hut and Shepard (1996) for a prioritiza- "ontologically speaking, behavior, functional role, and tion of the first-person over the third-person, and Smith causal relations are irrelevant to the existence ofxon- 44. In a short passage in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein what I want when I drink fine wine is information about (forthcoming) on how to get to the third-person from scious mental phenomena" (Searle 1992, p. 69; emphasis makes a similar point regarding the self (or subject- its chemical properties, why don't I just read the label?" the first-person. For a scrutiny of the metaphysical in original). This further and more encompassing claim hood): (quoted in Dennett 1991, p. 383). There is a ready- made answer to this question: It indeed is information foundations of such dichotomies as objectivity versus does not directly follow from the weaker one. More- subjectivity, see among others Goodman (1978), Rorty 5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject about the chemical properties of the wine that a con- over, it opens up a path the logical conclusion of which (1979), Putnam (1981), and Smith (1996). to be found? noisseur is interested in, but only if that information can may turn into "epiphenomenalism": the view that con- be accessed in a certain sensory modality—gustatorily, sciousness plays no causal role itself, though it may be You will say that this is exactly like the case of the 50. For a lucid analysis of James's account of the not visually. Put in Fregean (1892) terms, reading the the causal effect of other phenomena. I find Searle's eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the structure of "fringe consciousness," see Mangan (1993). label and sipping the wine would provide access to the second thesis untenable and its consequence very eye. Regarding works on the structure of phenomenal con- Guven Giizeldere 58 Approaching Consciousness

undesirable. I will come back to this issue in my dis- 54. Let me also mention that some philosophers think Nagel 1974,1979,1986, and Kripke 1980.) The follow- 59. Searle says: "For any artefact that we might build cussion of epiphenomenalism and the possibility of that the only legitimate sense of consciousness is phe- ing quotation eloquently summarizes Nagel's (and pre- which had mental states equivalent to human mental zombies. nomenal consciousness (e.g., Searle 1992, Flanagan sumably, Kripke's) position: states, the implementation of a computer program S3. There are also scientifically documented cases where 1992), while others believe only in access consciousness would not by itself be sufficient. Rather, the artefact We cannot directly see a necessary connection, if the relation between consciousness and externally ob- (e.g., Dennett 1991), and still others believe in phenom- would have to have powers equivalent to the powers of there is one, between phenomenological pain and a servable behavior breaks down. I briefly discussed the enal consciousness but try to account for it in causal, the human brain" (Searle 1984, p. 41). physiologically described brain state any more than phenomenon of "gaining consciousness' while under functional, or representational (i.e. "access-related") Searle's argument is against functionalist accounts of we can directly see the necessary connection between general anesthesia as one example. There are also terms (e.g., Van Gulick 1988, Tye 1992, Dretske 1995). consciousness. Even though he should not be taken to increase in temperature and pressure of a gas at a several diseases of the nervous system that fall in the 55. Some of these ideas are briefly explored in Gu- commit himself to a single specific underlying substance constant volume. In the latter case the necessity of category of demyelinating neuropathies (diseases that zeldere and Aydede (forthcoming). (i.e., neuronal structures), he nonetheless seems to think result from loss of conduction of nerve impulses due to the connection becomes clear only when we descend 56. I will discuss absent qualia, an offspring of philo- that consciousness is not medium-independent, at least the lack of formation of myelin, a fatty substance es- to the level of molecular description: till then it ap- sophical imagination that was conceived as a result so far as the causal powers of the medium go. This view sential to the insulation of axons in neurons), which re- pears as a contingent correlation. In the psycho- of taking the "hard problem" (perhaps too) seriously, seems to be based on the implicit assumption that there sult in the patient's gradual loss of reflexes and muscular physical case we have no idea whether there is such a in discussing zombies below. Regarding the explanatory are causal powers that cannot be captured by functional strength, and hence behavior, while not resulting in deeper level or what it could be; but even if there is, gap, here is a surprisingly contemporary expression of organization, but it unfortunately leaves the central no- substantial sensory changes (e.g., the Guillain-Barre the possibility that pain might be necessarily con- the problem from the nineteenth-century philosopher- tion of causal power unexplicated. syndrome). The ultimate state of such a patient involves nected with a brain state at this deeper level does not psychologist Charles Merrier: "The change of con- 60. Here is a noteworthy historical fact: Over a hundred very little outward behavior with no loss of conscious- permit us to conclude that pain might be directly sciousness never takes place without the change in the years before Crick and Koch presented their findings on ness, defying the behaviorist dogma. (Cf. Reeves 1981.) analyzable in physical or even topic-neutral terms. brain; the change in the brain never ... without the the 40-70 Hz phenomena, in 1879, Payton Spence pub- A moving account of a somewhat related nervous sys- (Nagel 1986, pp. 48-49) change in consciousness. But why the two occur to- lished an essay in which he argued, on purely metaphy- tem disorder, encephalitis lethargica (commonly known gether, or what the link is which connects them, we do sical grounds, that the basic form of consciousness as the sleeping sickness) was given in Oliver Sacks's 57. Searle's position is not as straightforward as not know, and most authorities believe that we never consists of a constant alteration of conscious and un- popular book, Awakenings. Sacks's description of the Nagel's, however. Although Searle talks about sub- shall and can never know" (Mercier 1888, p. 11). conscious states. But the alteration is so rapid that the victims of encephalitis lethargica is worth quoting at jectivity as an irreducible ontological property unique to subject never becomes aware of the discrete nature of least for its literary value: Note that the point Mercier is raising is very similar consciousness, he also maintains the following position, to the one expressed by John Tyndall in section I. A in a somewhat puzzling way, in the same book: "Con- her consciousness; she is under the illusion of having a continuous stream. Spence then speculated that Patients who suffered but survived an extremely similar but more recent statement, though in a more sciousness is, thus, a biological feature of certain or- there must be an underlying mechanism in the brain severe somnolent/insomniac attack of [encephalitis determinedly pessimist tone, can be found in a rather ganisms, in exactly the same sense of 'biological' in that is responsible for this alteration—something like lethargica] often failed to recover their original unlikely source. Here is Freud on the "hard problem": which photosynthesis, mitosis, digestion, and repro- duction are biological features of organisms One of a very rapid oscillation of neural tissue. In his own aliveness. They would be conscious and aware—yet We know two things concerning what we call our the main aims of this book is to try to remove that words: not fully awake; they would sit motionless and psyche or mental life: firstly, its bodily organ and obstacle, to bring consciousness back into the subject speechless all day in their chairs, totally lacking en- scene of action, the brain (or nervous system), and matter of science as a biological phenomenon like any The simplest form of consciousness, or mental life, ergy, impetus, initiative, motive, appetite, affect or secondly, our acts of consciousness, which are im- other" (Searle 1992, pp. 93,95; emphasis added). must consist in an alteration of a state of conscious- desire; they registered what went on about them with mediate data and cannot be more fully explained by ness with a state of unconsciousness—a regular profound indifference. They neither conveyed nor any kind of description. Everything that lies between 58. As Wittgenstein somewhat sarcastically remarks: rhythmical revelation of the Affirmation, con- felt the feeling of life; they were as insubstantial as these two terminal points is unknown to us and, so sciousness, by its Negation, unconsciousness, and ghosts, and as passive as zombies: von Economo The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between con- far as we are aware, there is no direct relation be- vice versa Perhaps it would be safer, for the compared them to extinct volcanoes. [However,... ] sciousness and brain-process: how does it come tween them. If it existed, it would at the most afford present, to call it a pulsation, or an undulation in the one thing, and one alone, was (usually) spared about that this does not come into the consid- an exact localization of the processes of conscious- brain, or a vibration of the molecules of the brain, amid the ravages of this otherwise engulfing disease: erations of our ordinary life? This idea of a differ- ness and would give us no help toward under- paralleled in consciousness. This pulsation or vi- the "higher faculties"—intelligence, imagination, ence in kind is accompanied by slight giddiness standing them. (Freud 1949, pp. 13-14) bration is, of course, very rapid; otherwise, we judgement, and humour. These were exempted—for When does this feeling occur in the present case? It is would not have to infer its existence, but would better or worse. Thus these patients, some of whom when I, for example, turn my attention in a particu- In contemporary philosophy of mind, Nagel's for- know it by perceiving the alterations of one state had been thrust into the remotest or strangest ex- lar way on to my own consciousness, and, aston- mulation of this problem has been most influential. The with another. (Spence 1879, p. 345) tremities of human possibility, experienced their difficulties Nagel raises with respect to "bridging the ished, say to myself: THIS is supposed to be produced by a process in the brain!—as it were clutching my states with unsparing perspicacity, and retained the explanatory gap" between things physiological and The interesting part comes when M. M. Garver, a forehead. But what can it mean to speak of "turning power to remember, to compare, to dissect, and to things phenomenal are also reflected in Kripke's attack neurophysiologist of the same era, finds the idea plau- my attention on to my own consciousness"? This is testify. Their fate, so to speak, was to become unique against identity theory. Even though the latter follows sible and follows up on it on experimental grounds. In surely the queerest thing there could be! (Wittgen- witnesses to a unique catastrophe. (Sacks 1974, pp. a different path, using tools from philosophy of lan- particular, he investigates the neural basis of voluntary stein 1958, §412, p. 124e) 9,12) guage, they arrive at very similar conclusions. (Cf. action (often associated with or regarded as an aspect of 61 Gflven Giizeldere 60 Approaching Consciousness

statement (largely in agreement with Herbert Spencer consciousness in those times, by psychologists including of blindsight against the background of Block's access distinction with regard to personality types, social be- 1891, 1898) in support of the causal construal and the William James) and publishes his results in the Ameri- versus phenomenal consciousness distinction in Gu- havior, and so on. One of the major results that came evolutionary relevance of consciousness: can Journal of Science in 1880. According to Garver, zeldere (1995e). out of the commissurotomy research is the hypothesis proposed and defended by (among others) Michael mental activity is subserved by a cerebral oscillatory 63. The precursors to Dennett's Cartesian Theater It is a well-known fact that pleasures are generally mechanism with a frequency range of 36-60 Hz. Garver metaphor can be found in the writings of Gilbert Ryle Gazzaniga (1993), that human cognition as well as associated with beneficial, pains with detrimental ex- hypothesizes that the change in the frequency of the and U. T. Place. Ryle (1949) characterized and criti- consciousness (in the sense of awareness of experience) periences. ... These coincidences are due, not to any neural oscillations correlates with minimum and max- cized the Cartesian notion of the mind as "a secondary are subserved by special brain circuitry normally lo- pre-established harmony, but to the mere action of imum levels of mentation, which results in voluntary theater in which the episodes enacted enjoy the sup- cated in the left hemisphere. For an account of the early natural selection which would certainly kill off in the action. Garver formulates his hypothesis as follows: posed status of 'the mental'" (p. 158). Similarly, Place work on commissurotomy, see Gazzaniga (1970). Galin long-run any breed of creatures to whom the funda- "The cerebral portion of the nervous system is con- (1956) called it a mistake to suppose that "when the (1974) explores the implications of hemispheric special- mentally noxious experience seemed enjoyable. An tinually varying in its activity, waxing and waning subject describes his experience, when he describes how ization for psychiatry. For a comprehensive collection animal that should take pleasure in a feeling of suf- between certain limits, periods of maTimiim activity things look, sound, smell, taste, or feel to him, he is de- of current research results in human neuropsychology, focation would, if that pleasure were efficacious following periods of minimum activity at the rate of 36 scribing the literal properties of objects and events on a including articles on modularity of mental function and enough to make him immerse his head in water, en- to 60 times per second" (Garver 1880, p. 190). peculiar sort of internal cinema or television screen, hemispheric specialization, see Gazzaniga et al. (1995). joy a longevity of four or five minutes. But if the At the end of his article, Garver claims that this usually referred to in the modern psychological liter- 65. It is interesting to note that this is a junction at pleasures and pains have no efficacy, one does not pattern can be extended to accommodate Spence's ature as the 'phenomenal field'" (p. 107). (The view that which some upholders of the "pro-qualia intuition" see why the most noxious acts, such as burning, hypothesis of alternating states of consciousness and Ryle and Place criticize also constitutes a particular meet on common ground with the most indoctrinated might not give thrills of delight, and the most neces- suggests that the lower and upper limits of the oscil- family of sense-data theories of perception that were qualia skeptics, such as the behaviorist psychologists for sary ones, such as breathing, cause agony The lation frequency can be taken as the correlates of con- quite popular at the time.) whom exorcising qualia out of the scope of psychology conclusion that [consciousness] is useful is ... quite was a primary goal. Notice, for instance, the similarity sciousness and unconsciousness, respectively. Interestingly, while the metaphor of mind as an inner justifiable. But, if it is useful, it must be so through While Spence and Garver cannot perhaps be said to theater never occurs explicitly in the writings of Des- between Jackson's (1982) position (who characterizes its causal efficaciousness. be in pursuit of a solution to the binding problem, and cartes (so far as I could tell), it can be found in a vivid himself as a "qualia freak," p. 127), and the position James's conclusion is that "the study a posteriori of thus have anticipated the Crick and Koch hypothesis passage in Hume (in his discussion of personal identity):. defended by Edward Tolman: "[Regarding visual per- the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly over a hundred years ahead of its time, I find the sim- "The mind is a kind of theatre, where several percep- ception in others] we never learn whether it 'feels' like such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake ilarity in the basic idea of seeking a neural oscillatory tions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, our 'red' or our 'green' or our 'gray', or whether, indeed, of steering a nervous system grown too complex to reg- basis for consciousness fascinating. Except a passing glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures its 'feel' is perhaps sui generis and unlike any of our ulate itself" (pp. 141,143-144). remark by William James in his discussion of the con- and situations." But Hume is also careful not to en- own Whether your 'raw feels' are or are not like tinuity of consciousness (James 19S0, p. 220, footnote), dorse, in virtue of using this metaphor, the kind of on- mine, you and I shall never discover. Your color 'feels' 67. See also Kitcher (1979) and Revonsuo (1994) for Spence and Garver's work seems to have gone, so far as tological conclusion Descartes is criticized as holding: may be the exact complementaries of mine, but, if related points. I could trace, unnoticed to date. "The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. so, neither of us will ever find it out, provided only 68. Precursors to Nagel's thinking on this issue can 61. The idea of localized functions in the brain precedes They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute that your discriminations and my discriminations be found in the writings of B. A. Farrell and Timothy James's work, and goes back at least to the once-too- the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the agree If there be 'raw feels' correlated with such Sprigge. Even though it was made famous by Nagel, the popular phrenology of Franz Gall in early 1800s (see, place, where these scenes are represented, or of the discriminanda-expectations, these 'raw feels' are by very original formulation of the question "what is it like to be foT instance, Ackerknecht and Vallois 1956). Jean Bap- materials, of which it is compos'd." (Hume 1955, Book definition 'private' and not capable of scientific treat- a bat?" goes back to Farrell's somewhat neglected essay, tiste Bouillaud, in 1825, proposed a hemispheric asym- I, IV:V, 85). ment. And we may leave the question as to whether they "Experience" (1950). In discussing the issue of experi- metry in brain function, but it was Carl Wernicke and 64. Another issue related to the Where question has to exist, and what to do about them, if they do exist, to ential knowledge, Farrell imagines a Martian visitor Paul Broca who made the greatest contribution to the do with lateralization of brain function in light of the other disciplines than psychology—for example, to about whose sensory capacities we obtain all the in- idea of modularity in the brain. Wernicke hypothesized "split-brain" research of the last few decades. The per- logic, epistemology, and metaphysics. And whatever the formation there is. According to Farrell, "We would that two particular areas in the left hemisphere of the formance of commissurotomy on humans (proposed answers of these other disciplines, we, as mere psychol- probably still want to say: 'I wonder what it would be brain (roughly, the left frontal lobe and the posterior and initiated by surgeon Joseph Bogen in 1960) to con- ogists, need not be concerned" (Tolman 1967, pp. 252- like to be a Martian.'" He continues: "There is some- cortex), which later became known as Broca's and trol interhemispheric spread of epilepsy produced a 253). thing more to be learned about the Martian, and that is Wernicke's areas, were responsible for language pro- number of patients in whom individual investigation Whether this surprising "meeting of minds" between what his experience is like." Farrell then extends the duction and language understanding, respectively. For of specialized hemispheric capabilities became possible. such arch-opponents as behaviorist psychologists and a question to babies and mice, as well as an opium an elemental neuropsychological account of aphasias The research on such patients (initially pursued by psy- certain brand of qualia defenders on presumably the smoker, and finally a bat: "I wonder what it would be that result from damage to these areas and other related chobiologist Roger Sperry and his collaborators) re- very point of contention between them speaks in favor like to be, and hear like, a bat" (pp. 34-35). matters, see Kolb and Whishaw (1990). vealed a number of interesting facts about hemispheric of the former or the latter party (if either), I leave open The lessons Farrell draws out of his ruminations are 62. For a comprehensive survey of similar neuro- specialization and resulted in a sizeable scientific liter- to the judgment of the reader. quite the opposite of Nagel's conclusions, however. It is psychological disorders, see Farah (1995). I discuss ature, as well as a huge corpus of popular psychology 66. William James (1950a), who characterizes con- rather Sprigge (1971) who makes the connection be- some philosophical issues involved in the phenomenon writing on the so-called left-brain versus right-brain sciousness as a "fighter for ends," makes the following tween the "what it is like" aspect of experience and Guven Guzeldere 62 Approaching Consciousness 63

physicalism's difficulty with accommodating it in the of Nitrogen; it is a gas readily soluble in water, and ences of the man who can see are known to him by supervenient properties ontologically distinct (auton- particular way Nagel problematizes the issue: "When possessed of a pungent and characteristic smell." If acquaintance, but the blind man can have inferential omously emergent) from physical properties, for in- one imagines another's conscious state, there is no con- the mechanistic theory be true the archangel could knowledge, or knowledge by description about those stance? Or (otherwise) does supervenience boil down clusive way of checking up whether one has done so deduce from his knowledge of the microscopic same experiences" (Feigl 1967, p. 68). A related puzzle, to old-fashioned identity? How are we to explain the correctly or not Presuming that the object (that is, at structure of atoms all these facts but the last. He based again on a thought-experiment, was posed as a nature of the supervenience relation itself? Given the "jocose problem" to John Locke by William Molyneux, least normally, the organism) with which one is con- would know exactly what the microscopic structure wide variety of possible supervenience relations (for ex- an amateur philosopher, in a letter dated 1693: "Sup- cerned, is indeed conscious, then being that organism of ammonia must be; but he would be totally unable ample, weak versus strong, local versus global), there is pose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his a vast and technically complicated literature in this area, will have a certain definite complex quality at every to predict that a substance with this structure must touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the but there exist no clear-cut received views that are taken waking moment Physical science makes no refer- smell as ammonia does when it gets into the human same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, to unanimously answer all these questions. For a sys- ence to qualities of this kind. Thus consciousness is that nose. The utmost that he could predict on this when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which tematic and thorough exploration of the supervenience which one characterises when one tries to answer the subject would be that certain changes would take the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on thesis in all its different characterizations, see Jaegwon question what it is or might be like to be a certain object place in the mucous membrane, the olfactory nerves a table, and the blind man be made to see: quaere, Kim's essays collected in Kim (1993). Two other useful in a certain situation" (p. 168). and so on. But he could not possibly know that these whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could collections that contain representatives of contem- changes would be accompanied by the appearance 69. Lycan (1997b) also makes a similar point: "The now distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the porary theorizing on supervenience are Beckermann, of a smell in general or of the peculiar smell of am- phrase 'what it's like' is more sinning than sinned cube?" (Quoted in Locke (1959), Book U, Chapter DC, Flohr, and Kim (1992), and Savellos and Yalcin (1995). monia in particular, unless someone told him so or against; nothing whatever is clarified or explained by pp. 186-187.) As such, Molyneux's question transforms See also McLaughlin (1989) for a discussion that relates he had smelled it for himself. (Broad 1962, p. 71) reference to it, and it itself is not only badly in need of the inquiry of whether non-experiential facts can yield supervenience to the question of epiphenomenalism, explanation, in general, but at least three-ways ambig- Similarly, an early formulation of the knowledge ar- knowledge of experiential facts (in the knowledge argu- and McLaughlin (1992) for a thorough exposition of the uous in particular" (p. 176). gument, as well as an antecedent of the Nemirow-Lewis ment) into a puzzle about intersensory translation— thought of British emergentists in which one can find 70. See Nagel (1974, 1979, 1986) for a full range of critique, appears in Feigl's discussion of "cognitive roles whether tactile facts can yield knowledge of visual facts numerous clues for the present supervenience debates. problems that involve subjectivity. See Lycan (1990), of acquaintance." Feigl asks: "What is it that the blind ("facts" taken broadly). Locke's negative answer to this In addition to philosophy of mind, notions of super- Biro (1991), Akins (1993), and Dretske (1995), man cannot know concerning color qualities?" and question was in agreement with Molyneux's opinion. venience, emergence, and different kinds of reduction among others, for deflationary responses. See also proposes the following answer But others disagreed, and Molyneux's question became have been central to discussions in philosophy of biol- Nagel (1983) for a discussion of how subjectivity figures one of the central topics of contention among such phi- ogy, particularly during the first half of this century. See in the problem of self, without ever touching on qualia, If we assume complete physical predictability of hu- losophers as Berkeley, Leibniz, Reid, Diderot, and Brandon (1996) for an exposition of these issues that and Perry (forthcoming) for a penetrating analysis and man behavior, i.e., as much predictability as the best Voltaire, in the greater context of the controversies over also ties them to debates in contemporary biology, and critique of Nagel's account. developed physical science of the future could con- innateness and abstract ideas. See Morgan (1977) and Harris (1993) for an exploration of the relations be- ceivably provide, then it is clear that the blind man Sanford (1983) for further exposition and discussion of 71. For Jackson's formulation, see Jackson (1982, tween the natures and the study of mind and life in phi- or the Martian would lack only acquaintance and the related issues. 1986). For various critiques, see Nemirow (1980), losophy, psychology, and biology. knowledge by acquaintance in certain areas of the Churchland (1989), Lewis (1990), Dennett (1991, chap. realm of qualia. Lacking acquaintance means not 72. For a classical treatment of the identity theory, see 73. It is interesting to note, by the way, that the word 10), Van Gulick (1993), Loar (1990), Harman (1993b), having those experiential qualia; and the consequent Sellars (1964). For recent arguments in its defense, see consciousness was hardly ever present in the philosoph- Dretske (1995, chap. 3), and Perry (1995). For a related lack of knowledge by acquaintance simply amounts Enc (1983) and Hill (1991). A thus far unmentioned but ical- literature around the time of functionalism, which empirical study on the conceptual representation of to being unable to label the qualia with terms used related concept that has played a significant role in the was instead brewing with the term qualia and, to a lesser colors in the blind and the color-blind, see Shepard and previously by the subject (or by some other subject) philosophy of mind over the past few decades is super- extent, terms like raw feels and phenomenal aspect of Cooper (1992). when confronted with their occurrence in direct ex- venience (presumably imported from Rom Hare's work consciousness. In the 1990s, in contrast, many of the One of the earlier formulations of the knowledge perience. Now, mere having or living through is not in ethics [1952] by Donald Davidson 1970). The thesis same old problems have gained new interest and im- argument can be found in C. D. Broad's thought ex- knowledge in any sense. "Knowledge by acquaint- that the mental supervenes on the physical is put forth as petus (perhaps from slightly but essentially similar periment about the archangel who knows all about ance," however, as we understand it here, is prepo- a better materialist solution to the mind-body problem perspectives) within a terminology populated with the chemistry but lacks the sense of smell. Broad sets up the sitional, it does make truth claims. than the identity thesis. The supervenience thesis is magic word consciousness and its derivatives. The rea- problem as follows: roughly that the mental character of a state or event is sons for. this terminological change probably lie partly Feigl then goes on to suggest, anticipating many of Would there be any theoretical limit to the de- wholly determined by its physical profile, such that there outside philosophy, for example in the wide acceptance the present-day critiques of the knowledge argument, duction of the properties of chemical elements and cannot be a change in the former without a change in of the term consciousness into other fields with which that the blind person (or Jackson's fictional color scien- compounds if a mechanistic theory of chemistry the latter. Put differently, sameness in the (subvening) philosophy interacts. tist, Mary) does not lack any knowledge per se; all he or physical properties is hypothesized to guarantee same- were true? Yes. Take any ordinary statement, such 74. There is a sizeable literature regarding the absent she lacks is a particular mode of knowing the same facts ness in the (supervening) mental properties. as we find in chemistry books; e.g., "Nitrogen and qualia argument. Some of the most influential thought as do normally sighted people: "What one person has Hydrogen combine when an electric discharge is But the status of the supervenience thesis vis-a-vis experiments that support the possibility of absent qualia and knows by acquaintance may be identical with what passed through a mixture of the two. The resulting the mind-body problem, especially with regard to are due to Block (1978, 1980b) and Block and Fodor someone else knows by description. The color experi- compound contains three atoms of Hydrogen to one phenomenal consciousness, remains controversial. Are (1980). See Shepard (1993) for a recent discussion in the Giiven Guzeldere 64 Approaching Consciousness 65

context of color vision and evolutionary theory. Shoe- all these particles brought together into one system, so possibilities against functionalism. Dretske (1995) re- cause the essence of pains, the reasoning goes, is not at- maker (197S, 1981a) presents an eloquent defense of as to touch one another; will they thereby, or by any gards inverted spectrum as a problem for functionalism tributable (by a third party) but rather accessible in a functionalism against the absent qualia arguments. See motion or composition whatsoever, become any whit but not for representationalism (and hence, not for privileged way (through the first-person perspective). also Dretske (1995) who raises the possibility of absent less truly distinct Beings, than they were at the greatest materialism in general). Tye (1995) argues for the There is something it is like to have pains, but there is qualia in an externalist context in relation to Donald distance? How then can their being disposed in any conclusion that is somewhat similar to Shoemaker's: nothing it is like to believe that there is no greatest prime Davidson's (1987) "swampman" argument, and Tye possible system, make them one individual conscious spectrum inversion is possible in narrow functional number (or even that one is in pain). It is this difference (1995) for a representationalist critique of absent qualia. being?" (Clarke 1707, p. 82) duplicates, but this does not constitute a problem for that warrants epiphenomenalism, in the present liter- wide functionalism (that Tye defends). ature, as a possibility with respect to pains, but not be- For further discussion, see Lycan (1981), Levin (1985), 75. The origins of this problem go back indeed to liefs (about prime numbers, one's pains, or anything Graham and Stephens (1985), White (1986), Fox (1989), a puzzle about visual experience, described by John 76. A similarly externalist theory is put forth by Gilbert Levine (1989), Horgan (1987), and Hardcastle (1996). else). Locke a few centuries ago: Harman (1990) where qualia are identified with inten- One of the most commonly cited absent qualia argu- tional properties, as well as by Michael Tye (1995). Accordingly, under the stipulation of appropriate ments is based on Block's (1978) "Chinese Nation" Neither would it carry any imputation of falsehood David Armstrong had earlier suggested identifying environmental and historical conditions, it is generally scenario, designed to "embarrass all versions of func- to our simple ideas, if by the different structure of qualia (what he called "secondary qualities") with regarded as a possibility that a physical replica of a hu- tionalism" by showing that functionalism is guilty of our organs it were so ordered, that the same object properties of physical objects in his discussion of "Re- man being can lack all qualia, while not lacking beliefs "classifying systems that lack mentality as having men- should produce in several men's mauls different ideas alist Reductionism" (Armstrong 1993, chap. 12, 270- or judgments (or other such intentional states). This is tality" (p. 275). Block asks us to imagine the functional at the same time; e.g. if the idea that a violet pro- 290). Clues for these positions can be found in Elizabeth the possibility of the modem zombie that has center simulation of a human brain by the Chinese nation by duced in one man's mind by his eyes were the same Anscombe's discussion of the intentional nature of sen- stage in debates about phenomenal consciousness. Ned connecting each of the billion inhabitants of China in that a marigold produced in another man's, and vice sations (Anscombe 1965). Block (1995) calls such replicas phenomenal zombies: versa. For, since this could never be known, because "the familiar ... robots that think but don't feel" appropriate ways through radio links, and having them 77. Perhaps a caveat about the particular brand of one man's mind could not pass into another man's (p. 234). Or, as David Chalmers (1996) describes: "My communicate from a distance like neurons in a brain epiphenomenalism and zombiehood I am referring body, to perceive what appearances were produced zombie twin ... will be psychologically identical to me. and thereby animate an artificial body for a certain pe- to is in order here. Epiphenomenalism about phenom- by those organs: neither the ideas hereby, nor the He will be perceiving the trees outside, in the functional riod of time. According to Block, while this China-body enal consciousness is, of course, different from epi- names, would be at all confounded, or any falsehood sense, and tasting the chocolate, in the psychological system is "nomologically possible" and "it could be phenomenalism about the mind in general. Discussions be in either. For all things that had the texture of a functionally equivalent to [a human being] for a short about epiphenomenalism earlier this century generally sense [similar to its ordinary twin modulo qualia] He violet, producing constantly the idea that he called time," it is doubtful "whether it has any mental states at assumed the latter kind (see, for instance, Broad 1962). will be awake, able to report the contents of his internal blue, and those which had the texture of a marigold, all—especially whether it has ... 'qualitative states', In the contemporary literature, however, the focus has states, able to focus attention in various places, and so producing constantly the idea which he constantly 'raw feels', or 'immediate phenomenological qualities'" somewhat shifted. Probably largely due to the advent of on. It is just that none of this functioning will be ac- called yellow, whatever those appearances were in (pp. 276-278). Block's point is to establish the short- functionalist and computational-representational theo- companied by any real conscious experience. There will his mind; he would be able as regularly to distin- comings of functional characterizations of qualia, by ries of mind in a materialist framework, many today be no phenomenal feel. There is nothing it is like to be a guish things for his use by those appearances, and appealing to intuitions that he takes as common sens- take intentional states, such as beliefs and judgments, as zombie" (p. 95). understand and signify those distinctions marked by ical, such as the intuition that such "distributed minds" contentful internal structures in the brain (see, for ex- It is important to notice that zombies, construed as the name blue and yellow, as if the appearances or are absurd. ample, Fodor 1987). As such, no one thinks that beliefs, such, are taken to be in possession of all sorts of beliefs, ideas in his mind received from those two flowers qua such physical structures, lack causal properties. The thoughts, and judgments that their human twins typi- A similar intuition was commonly employed in dis- were exactly the same with the ideas in other men's controversy is rather on whether their content (seman- cally have, including the self-ascribed ones. As Chalm- cussions regarding the unity of mind versus the divisi- minds (Locke 1959, bk. n, chap. 32, §15, p. 520). bility of matter with the aim of embarrassing all forms tics) has a causal role in the explanation of behavior (cf. ers (1993) states: "Zombie Dave's beliefs may not be of materialism in early modern philosophy. For exam- Dretske 1988). colored by the usual phenomenological tinges, but it There are also several positions with respect to the ple, the eighteenth century English theologian Samuel seems reasonable to say that they are nevertheless inverted spectrum argument. Here is a simple set: Block But the real hot spot of the epiphenomenalism debate Clarke appeals to the absurdity of the distributed-minds beliefs. Beliefs, unlike qualia, seem to be characterized (1978) and Block and Fodor (1980) raise the possibility has to do with phenomenal consciousness—whether intuition in a piece of hypothetical reasoning, similar to primarily by the role that they play in the mind's causal of inverted spectrum against functionalism, and Block qualia play any role in the otherwise causally charac- Block's, to make a case for the "immateriality and nat- economy." Accordingly, the zombie twin, too, takes (1990) presents an original twist on the same problem as terizable economy of our mental lives. Note, after all, ural immortality of the soul" as follows: "That the soul aspirin because he thinks he has a headache, wants an- a reply to Harman (1990), who argues against inverted that while there is a vast literature on the possibility of cannot possibly be material is moreover demonstrable esthetics at the dentist chair because he believes the root spectrum on externalist grounds. Shoemaker (1975, absent qualia, no one seems to be worrying about the from the single consideration even of bare sense and canal will hurt, and so on. It is just that all his beliefs and 1981b, 1991) is more lenient toward accepting the pos- possibility of "absent beliefs" or "absent judgments." consciousness itself. For suppose three, or three hun- judgments about bis own qualia are systematically false. sibility of inverted spectrum compared to his rejection There seems to be a crucial difference between beliefs dred, particles of matter, at a mile, or at any given dis- Nothing hurts in him, even if he sincerely believes he has of the possibility of absent qualia, but he presents an and pains: while it is considered legitimate to attribute tance, one from another; is it possible that all those a splitting headache. Accordingly, we should not be argument on how to accommodate qualia inversion beliefs to someone who behaves in ways that can be ex- separate parts should in that state be one individual motivated to put him under anaesthesia when his tooth within a broadly functionalist framework. However, plained by belief-attributions of the relevant sort, it is conscious being?" But Clarke then takes his argument a is being drilled, despite all his screams, if it is the pain see also Levine (1988), who argues that absent qualia considered very problematic to so attribute pains, be- step further to apply it to human beings: "Suppose then quale that matters. and inverted spectrum stand or fall together as logical Giiven Guzeldere 66 Approaching Consciousness 67

Put differently, what distinguishes this kind of a Journal of Consciousness Studies (2:4, 1995) for a sym- kind of qualia (which don't do anything), one may as nothing—zilch—worthy of being called a research pro- zombie from its human twin is the stipulated ever- posium on zombies based on Moody 1994). well not have a mind" (p. 80). gram, nor are there any substantive proposals about presence of a gap between the "appearance" and "re- 81. Here is Dennett (1979) on describing the phenom- However, this position should be distinguished from how to go about starting one Researchers are ality" of the zombie's qualitative states—what qualia enology of one's own experience: "We are all, I take it, eliminativism about consciousness, defended, for in- stumped.... No one has yet come up with a theoretical he judges himself to have versus what qualia he really unshakably sure that we are each in a special position to stance, by Rey (1988). Rey's suggestion is to do away perspective that uses these data to narrow the explana- has—and nothing much else. (Note that something like report, or to know, or to witness or experience a set of with the largely folk-theoretic notion of consciousness tory gap, even a little bit" (p. 211). an "appearance-reality" distinction is required in order something-or-others we may call, as neutrally as pos- because it contains Cartesian elements and plays no My ultimate conclusion, expressed in the last para- to coherently conceptualize the possibility of a zombie.) sible, elements of our own conscious experience useful causal-explanatory role. I am suggesting (and graph of this chapter and hopefully substantiated by the As such, there is a psychologically significant and ex- Prepositional episodes ... comprise our streams of probably Kim and Dretske would agree), in contrast, exposition presented thus far, differs from both. planatorily important sense in which things seem (i.e., consciousness by embodying our semantic intentions of that because we do not want to do away with our com- References to the Introduction appear on pages 807- are judged, thought, believed, expected, noticed,... to the moment, by being the standards against which we mon sense notion of consciousness (or, at least, a sig- 816. be) a certain way to the zombie twin. correct, or would correct, any failures of execution were nificant part of it), we need to seek to secure a genuine Consequently, to the extent that nonqualitative in- we to utter anything at the time These are... think- role for it in the causal web of the world. tentional states, (including self-ascribed beliefs about ings that p. ... I call them judgments Such judg- 84. Put differently, I am essentially in agreement with one's own qualitative states) are constitutive of a first- ments exhaust our immediate consciousness, that our David Lewis (1980) on a point he makes regarding the person perspective (cf. Chisholm 1981), the zombie can individual streams of consciousness consist of nothing status of pain that I take as an objection to the segrega- be said to have such a perspective (albeit a systemati- but such prepositional episodes. My view, put bluntly, tionist intuition: "Only if you believe on independent cally misguided one). A zombie's life is not, after all, is that there is no phenomenological manifold in any grounds that considerations of causal role and physical completely devoid of all mental elements. He only lacks such relation to our reports. There are the public reports realization have no bearing on whether a state is pain an important component of an otherwise intact epis- we issue, and then there are the episodes of our propo- should you say that they have no bearing on how a state temic perspective. After all, it is in virtue of having such sitional awareness, our judgments, and then there is—so feels" (p. 222). Along these lines, see Humphrey (1992); a perspective that receiving anaesthetics at the dentist far as introspection is concerned—darkness" (pp. 93- see also Hardin (1987, 1988) for an important attempt chair seems to matter to the zombie twin, even if his 95). to deflate the explanatory gap between the causal and preferences are entirely on the basis of false self-ascribed This quotation probably represents a position at a phenomenal aspects of consciousness in the case of vis- beliefs (about his own non-existent pain qualia). It is this far end of the spectrum of views on the nature of inner ual perception and color qualia. characterization of zombiehood that is typically in- 85. The Fodor quote is from Fodor 1987, p. 156. Fodor voked in contemporary debates, and I will confine my experience. There are, of course, many midway views holds a much more pessimistic opinion regarding the discussion accordingly throughout the rest of this between the positions that occupy the two endpoints. prospects for a theory of consciousness in comparison to chapter. For instance, one can agree with "friends of qualia" that there is something crucial to theorize about under the a theory of rationality, however. Regarding rationality, 78. Notice that this view, as such, does not deny that we term "phenomenal consciousness" distinct from "epi- he thinks that "certain residual technical difficulties" are conscious. It comes close, however, in positing that sodes of propositional awareness and judgments," but notwithstanding, "we are (maybe) on the verge of solv- our being conscious, in itself, makes no difference— maintain that the way they choose to theorize about it is ing a great mystery about the mind: How is rationality hence the path to zombiehood. misguided. mechanically possible?" (Fodor 1987, pp. 156, 21). Re- 79. James (1879) is a vigorous response to Huxley. See 82. The disagreement is not only between those who garding consciousness, here is what he says: "Nobody also Capek (1954) for a commentary on this exchange. believe in phenomenal consciousness and those who has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to 80. As far as I could trace, the term zombie enters the deny it; it pervades the community of the supporters of have the slightest idea about how anything material philosophical vocabulary with Kirk (1974) in an argu- this very notion. For instance, Block claims that Searle, could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of con- ment against materialism. For other arguments that in an attempt to point to consciousness, confounds too sciousness" (Fodor 1992, p. 5). defend the intuition in favor of the possibility of zom- many senses of the term. As Block says, "It is important biehood, see Block (1978), Block and Fodor (1980), to point properly." But who has the omniscient pointer? Perhaps then, one thinks, Fodor should consider Searle (1992), and Chalmers (1996). For counterargu- 83. Jaegwon Kim (1996) makes a similar point with re- starting to think about consciousness and give those ments, see Lewis (1972) and Shoemaker (1975), as well spect to mind in general: "Saving mentality while losing working in the field a helping hand. But similarly as Kirk (1994). For an expression of philosophical in- causality doesn't seem to amount to saving anything gloomy sentiments are expressed by Block (1994), a tolerance for epiphenomenalism and the possibility of worth saving. For what good is the mind if it has no prominent figure in the consciousness literature, as well: zombies, see Dennett (1991, chp. 10). Guzeldere (1995d) causal powers?" (p. 237). Or, to transform a point Fred "The notable fact is that in the case of thought, we ac- distinguishes among physiological, functional, and Dretske (1988) makes with respect to the explanatory tually have more than one substantive research pro- merely behavioral zombies, and briefly examines their role of content into one about phenomenal conscious- gramme, and their proponents are busy fighting it out, respective underlying metaphysical assumptions. (See ness (with apologies), "if having a mind is having (his comparing which research program handles which phe- nomena best. But in the case of consciousness, we have