In an attempt to dive further into my studies on pairing Descartes’ theory of,“I think therefore I exist” with Carl Sagan’s notion of “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself”, I wanted to explore the idea of consciousness. Susan Blackmore’s Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction seems to be logical place to start.
In Chapter one, several questions are posed to the reader right off the bat. “What does consciousness do?, “Could we have evolved without it?”, “Is consciousness an illusion?”, and “What do we mean by consciousness?” The sheer magnitude of these questions can leave the reader initially feeling dwarfed and perhaps as if there are no answers absolute answers to these questions, or at least not ones we will arrive to any time soon. So, are these questions a waist of time? Are we just chasing an unanswerable question? “Does this not mean that the mystery has gone away?” (p.1). Not at all. Blackmore goes on to tell us why.
At the heart of consciousness, we find we are unable to explain the mind-body problem. “The trouble is that in ordinary human experience there seems to be two entirely different kinds of thing, with no obvious way to bring them together.” (p.2). For example, how can I be sure your experience of green is the same as mine. I cannot. Yet my experiences are the only ‘sure’ real substance I have that I can construct my world upon. At the same time, I never truly know if I’m experiencing the ‘real’ world because I am unable to compare it with anything other than my own experiences. On the flip side, however, it is these experiences that also allow me to know for certain there IS in fact SOMETHING out there. Whether my interpretation of them is correct, that is a different matter. I’ve gotten lost on a tangent here, let me regroup.
Short answer is, we have experiences both with shape, size, color, etc, but we also have personal ones like pain, love and empathy. So how to these two coincide? In order to answer this we must first know what our definition of consciousness is.
In 1974, Thomas Nagel posed the question, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ ‘If there is something it is like to be the bat- something for the bat itself- then the bat is conscious. If there is nothing it is like to be the bat, then it is not.” (p.6). This question intrigued me so I began asking myself ‘What is it like to be…’ questions and found that some answers were not so easy. For example, if I ask myself ‘What is it like to be a chair?’ I probably cannot think of what it would be like to be a chair because chairs don’t feel or move, etc. But what about a plant, or a dog. Can you answer as quickly and with as much certainty when you ask yourself the ‘What is it like to be…’ question? I found myself struggling. So does that mean some things are conscious and others are not? If so, what are the requirements to label if something is conscious? A dog has the same five senses as us, but some are more advanced, others not so much. But all in all I would consider dogs to have consciousness. What about the plant? It does not have the same five senses as my dog and I, however it still shows signs of having an awareness of what is going on around it (I do not have specific examples and am not looking at getting into a research project on plant awareness but you understand the point I am getting at here), so then that rules out that all five senses needing to be a requirement for consciousness, right?
To be honest the rest of the chapter just dove into different terminology and basic theories of consciousness (is it biologically based, is it actually just some useless byproduct that really does nothing at all, etc), but I found it hard to focus on them since I still did not have a clear idea of what consciousness WAS. What is it exactly that I am looking for? To be continued.
Good start, Sarah.
ReplyDelete(FYI, Evolutionists: Sarah is also doing a focused readings course on consciousness. I'm sure she wouldn't mind your comments on that too.)
To your concluding question: I don't know that anyone has a "clear idea of what c'ness [is]"..., though some SAY they have, just by virtue of introspection and reflection on what's presented in self-awareness. But take a step back and think about yourself thinking about yourself... it very quickly gets mysterious and murky. Doesn't it? So, that's our situation as consciousness students: we're looking for something we know-not-what, with the dimmest of lanterns, but the keenest interest. To find "exactly what you're looking for, you kind of have to stipulate what you think that is - then be prepared to say, on closer inspection, that no, that's not it. And keep looking.
Also: it seems to me there are two fundamental questions in this domain: what is it like to be a conscious human, AND what is it like to be THIS conscious human, i.e., myself? (Or yourself...) In terms of access, do we know what it's like to be oneself but not another? Must we court solipsism? And even if we know ourselves personally, can we extrapolate from self- to species-knowledge? And even if we can do THAT, can we explain how inert unconscious matter gives rise to all our teeming subjectivity and sense of selfhood? As you imply, there are lots more questions here than obvious answers. In this way, consciousness studies are paradigmatically philosophical - and to my mind, paradigmatically engaging.
DeleteGreat points Dr. Oliver! I guess I am getting caught up on the narrow scope of defining what it is that I am looking for, but excellent reminder to take a step back and explore the greater mystery. I shall keep that in mind as I dive deeper. And yes, your point on self- to species- knowledge... it seems to me that there are not only levels of consciousness species to species but also WITHIN each species which is yet another mystery to me. We are not all alike, yet there seems to be these 'parameters' that allow us (humans) to 'have' consciousness, so what is it that we poses that other species do not? Or do they and it just hasn't 'evolved' yet? I'm getting lost in endless wheel of thought and LOVE IT!!
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