Wilfrid Laurier University Scholars Commons @ Laurier Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) 2009 Consciousness From A Naturalistic Perspective Hugh R. Alcock Wilfrid Laurier University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Alcock, Hugh R., "Consciousness From A Naturalistic Perspective" (2009). Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive). 1065. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/1065 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONSCIOUSNESS FROM A NATURALISTIC PERSPECTIVE by Hugh R. Alcock MPhil, University of Birmingham, 2001 BA. Hons, University of Guelph, 1999 DISSERTATION Submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy Wilfrid Laurier University April, 2009 © Hugh R. 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Canada ii ABSTRACT Despite advances in neuroscience some sceptics, e.g., David Chalmers, Colin McGinn and Thomas Nagel, contend that we are no nearer to achieving a scientific understanding of phenomenal consciousness. These sceptics claim that naturalising consciousness, i.e., subsuming it under our scientific theories, is either impossible, at least without radically reforming our current scientific practices, or perhaps beyond our cognitive grasp. Their scepticism is based on what is called the 'problem of consciousness' or the 'hard problem'. I argue that their pessimism is unwarranted. Their conclusion is based on adopting a non- naturalistic attitude, according to which our scientific theories must accommodate our intuitive understanding of phenomena. Adopting this attitude, I argue, is a bad policy quite generally as it is liable to lead to unconstrainable metaphysical claims. Our best policy is to adopt a naturalistic attitude instead, characterised by thinking of philosophy as continuous with science, as W.V. Quine urged. And from this naturalistic perspective explaining consciousness in scientific terms is possible. Our phenomenological, i.e., first- personal, understanding of consciousness is based on qualia which, I argue, are unnaturalisable. However, there are two ways in which we understand consciousness, namely, naturalistically in terms of behaviour and physiology and phenomenologically, and I argue that although it may seem contradictory these ways of understanding consciousness are mutually dependent. Consequently, consciousness as it is understood naturalistically is bound up with our phenomenological understanding of it. Therefore, inasmuch as consciousness understood naturalistically is subsumable under our scientific theories so consciousness simpliciter is naturalisable. Ill ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to my dissertation adviser Neil Campbell. I could not have hoped for a better adviser. Above all he has demonstrated to me the virtues of clarity and organisation in philosophical writing. Special thanks also to the other two members of my committee, Andrew Bailey and Rockney Jacobsen, who have been exemplary in their professionalism and generous with their time. Also I wish to thank my external examiner, Philip Dwyer (University of Saskatchewan), and my internal/external examiner, Peter Eglin (Department of Sociology). Both examiners had valuable insights into my work and have given me much to think about. In addition, I owe a sincere debt of thanks to Rhea and Ray Whitehead and Cathie Neagle, without whose support none of this would have been possible. Finally, many thanks to my parents Roy and Sheila Alcock for their support during my years of study. CONSCIOUSNESS FROM A NATURALISTIC PERSPECTIVE Hugh R. Alcock TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1-14 Chapter 1: Naturalism and Consciousness 15-54 1.1 Naturalism 17 1.2 Consciousness as a Natural Property 29 1.2.1 Chalmers'Naturalistic Dualism 31 1.3 Varieties of Naturalism 35 1.4 Consciousness and Cognitive Closure 41 1.4.1 Consciousness as a Non-spatial Property 45 1.5 A Difficulty with McGinn's Naturalism 48 1.6 Summary 52 Chapter 2: The Problem of Consciousness 55-102 2.1 Nagelian Anti-Physicalism 59 2.2 Jackson's Knowledge Argument 70 2.3 Chalmers' Panpsychism 77 2.4 The Conceivability Argument 89 2.4.1 Reply to the Conceivability Argument 95 2.5 Summary 101 Chapter 3: The Unindividuability of Qualia 103-139 3.1 What Qualia Are Thought to Be 105 3.1.1 The Peculiarity of Qualia 109 3.2 Why Qualia Cannot Be Individuated 112 3.3 Dennett's Qualia Scepticism 116 3.3.1 Qualia Debunked 122 3.4 A Physicalist Criterion of Individuation 126 3.4.1 Evidence for the Identity Theory? 132 3.5 Summary 136 V Chapter 4: Saving the Phenomenological 140-176 4.1 Making Sense of Consciousness 142 4.2 Retaining Qualia 150 4.2.1 Two Ways of Thinking of Consciousness 155 4.2.2 The Zombie Hypothesis 161 4.2.3 The Problem of the Explanatory Gap 166 4.3 Making Sense of Qualia Talk 174 4.4 Summary 175 Chapter 5: Demystifying Qualia 177-215 5.1 Two Objections 179 5.2 Why Qualia Are not Non-Physical 181 5.3 Dissolving the Mystery 186 5.3.1 Neuroscience and Consciousness 192 5.4 Qualia as Epistemically Originating Properties 202 5.5 Dissolving the Problem of Consciousness 206 Bibliography 217-222 1 INTRODUCTION As our understanding of the brain, and of cognition more generally, has advanced some have begun seriously to try to explain mental phenomena, that is, to offer a viable theory of mind. These efforts find support among many philosophers of mind; perhaps the most notable of whom are Daniel Dennett and Paul and Patricia Churchland. There could almost be said to exist a partnership between neuroscientists and philosophers in this respect.1 At the same time, however, other philosophers see the possibility of a neuroscientific theory of mind as either extremely problematic or downright mistaken. This scepticism originates, most notably, with the work of Thomas Nagel (1974) and Frank Jackson (1982). Other more recent sceptics include David Chalmers (1996), Colin McGinn (1991), Galen Strawson (1994). Their concerns focus on phenomenal consciousness. They argue that our inability to think of consciousness in physical terms either demonstrates or strongly suggests that it is not a physical property and as such it is beyond the limits of science, at least as it is currently practised. In this dissertation I 1 This partnership has led to the publication of many popular books expounding such theories, e.g., Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error (1994), Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained (1991) and Nicholas Humphrey's A History of the Mind (1994), and more recently G.M. Edelman and G. Tononi's A Universe of Consciousness (2000) and Christof Koch's The Quest for Consciousness (2004). 2 consider the philosophical reasoning behind this scepticism about the possibility of naturalising phenomenal consciousness, i.e., capturing it in our scientific theories. Phenomenal consciousness (henceforth 'consciousness') is that property constitutive of our phenomenal experiences, e.g., our seeing a blue sky, our smelling the fragance of a flower, our hearing the musical notes of a composition etc. In seeing a blue sky we do not simply see the sky as blue, but rather -we feel it as such. Consciousness concerns how things feel or seem to us in this sense. Without consciousness, we suppose, perceiving the world would be mechanical; that is to say, there would be nothing more to seeing, hearing, touching things etc. than bodies reacting to these things in ways that could be wholly described in mechanical terms. And this is not how we think our experiences go. Our experiences are alive, they are conscious or felt. Pain, for example, is not merely a mechanical reaction to bodily damage, it also has the qualitative character of hurtfulness; besides involving a set of behavioural dispositions such as avoidance and exclamations, pain experiences have a raw feel to them. We think of consciousness, therefore, as comprising the qualitative character of our phenomenal experiences. Each of the properties that characterise experience in this qualitative sense is often referred to as a 'quale'.