As I wrote in my prior post, the paper
being read, David Chalmers', “
Consciousness and its Place in Nature” is an overview of the various positions relating to that
topic – Consciousness and its proper explanation. It is basically a
review of the literature examining whether a materialist solution is
feasible or is it the case that a dualist solution is required.
Chalmers is sympathetic to a dualist position. That said most
solutions to the question are guided by the proposition that mind and
consciousness are of this world – they are materialist.
Returning to my narrative, I decided to
write some response to the paper, as my writings from school had been
shot down as too dated. And I did write a rambling response to it,
which got me no where regarding the group. In the process of writing
that response I did discover two topics that have continued to hold
my attention. The first was or is what Chalmers described as “The
Knowledge Argument”, involving Mary the neuroscientist. The second
is the core of the debate over consciousness – qualia.
So Mary the neuroscientist, despite her
complete knowledge of neuroscience and visual perception does not and
/ or has not perceived the color red. With that, Mary in fact has an
incomplete knowledge of these topics. Despite her knowledge of the
facts, her knowledge is incomplete.
The second topic is what drives the
whole consciousness debate – qualia. In the end, I would have to
say that Mary and her inability to experience red boils down to the
discussion of qualia. Mary, despite all her knowledge is unable to
experience red, just as we are unable to experience what it is to be
a bat. Chalmers points out from the outset that there is an epistemic
and metaphysical gap between the physical and the phenomenal truths.
Regardless of how much we come to understand of the brain and neural
processes, there will always be a gap between that information and
our experiences.
Chalmers proceeds to explore the two
most common responses by materialists regarding this gap, calling
them Type A and Type B Materialism. The Type A entails a denial of
the gap. Type B is a little more involved but roughly acknowledges
the gap but limits it to an epistemic issue. At the end of the day
the Type B materialist arrives at the same place as the Type A. There
is just a little more work regarding the epistemic component, but
again at the end of the day it is a materialist solution.
From there Chalmers proceeds to
eliminativism, which falls under the Type A category. It basically
argues that consciousness can be explained by an examination of
neurological processes. In short, we have a study of the underlying
neurological processes performing the various functional tasks
explaining the various behaviors, responses, and self-reports. What
was once defined as consciousness is eliminated and replaced with a
discussion of the neurology and its functionality.
Now in the next section I will be
looking to Daniel Dennett. Specifically parts and pieces of his book,
Consciousness Explained – an appropriate work to appeal to.
Before we turn to that, I want to poke at something here. So far we
have Chalmers pointing out that the physical facts seem to leave
something on the table. To the eliminativist, Chalmers is saying that
their neurology and perhaps some set of functions is not sufficient.
It seems to all go back to common
example to which I referred to earlier - the bat. We just cannot
comprehend what it is like to be a bat. I have no idea what it is
like to be hanging upside down in a cave with several hundred or
perhaps thousands of one's fellow bats. Nor do I have any idea of
what is like to be fluttering around in the dusk and dark relying
upon some type of sonar to guide one's self, as opposed to the vision
we rely on.
That said in the above paragraph we
have already started making inroads into getting some understanding
of their existence. It may not be perfect but it is not
incomprehensible. Perhaps the biology including the neural processes,
the associated functions and behavior these lead to are sufficient.
Perhaps we can have some understanding of what it is like to be a
bat.
Yet Chalmers' initial claim does
resonate. At first blush it is hard to grasp what it is like to be a
bat. Even a second or third is perhaps a challenge. . . A bat's
phenomenal existence and experience is different from our own. That
said, after our initial pause and shaking our heads, we do start to
put together a story of their existence. We can examine the workings
of their wings, theirs ears, their claws, and arrive at some
understanding of them and with that eliminate some small distance
between us and them.
Is it possible, considering that we can
start to grasp something about a bat, that what Chalmers is pointing
to is that which is novel? Is it possible that the phenomenal
experience that he is pointing to is simply that which cannot be
processed by our normal neurological and functional processes and
components? In short, pondering what it is like to be a bat is not
part of our day-to-day activities, and likewise not part of our
cognitive nor neural processes. Granted if you are a zoologist or
even a chiropterologist that might not be the case but for most of
us, it is.
Consciousness is often gained at such
moments. It is that moment when we stumble or trip over something
novel. It is that moment when we do not know how to proceed. Our brain and
the associated tools and processes both in our heads and the tools in
our hands do not work. They are for that moment insufficient, That
said, it is often the case that we do after that initial moment, that
initial pause, do proceed. We stop in our tracks, realizing that we
were about to walk out into traffic, or we run like hell away from
the bear, or take in the scenic beauty of the valley and mountains
that we have come upon. We might reflect on the question of what it
is like to be a bat, and arrive at some type of answer, or we simply end up dead on that occasion, such as a bear or the oncoming taxi moving too fast, where
no solution is forthcoming.
