Discussing"The Problem of Consciousness"in John Searle paper

[Scott]

"The Problem of Consciousness* John R. Searle (copyright John R. Searle)

Abstract: This paper attempts to begin to answer four questions. 1. What is consciousness? 2. What is the relation of consciousness to the brain? 3. What are some of the features that an empirical theory of consciousness should try to explain? 4. What are some common mistakes to avoid?

The most important scientific discovery of the present era will come when someone -- or some group -- discovers the answer to the following question: How exactly do neurobiological processes in the brain cause consciousness? This is the most important question facing us in the biological sciences, yet it is frequently evaded, and frequently misunderstood when not evaded. In order to clear the way for an understanding of this problem. I am going to begin to answer four questions: 1. What is consciousness? 2. What is the relation of consciousness to the brain? 3. What are some of the features that an empirical theory of consciousness should try to explain? 4. What are some common mistakes to avoid?

I. What is consciousness? Like most words, `consciousness' does not admit of a definition in terms of genus and differentia or necessary and sufficient conditions. Nonetheless, it is important to say exactly what we are talking about because the phenomenon of consciousness that we are interested in needs to be distinguished from certain other phenomena such as attention, knowledge, and self-consciousness. By `consciousness' I simply mean those subjective states of sentience or awareness that begin when one awakes in the morning from a dreamless sleep and continue throughout the day until one goes to sleep at night or falls into a coma, or dies, or otherwise becomes, as one would say, `unconscious'. Above all, consciousness is a biological phenomenon. We should think of consciousness as part of our ordinary biological history, along with digestion, growth, mitosis and meiosis. However, though consciousness is a biological phenomenon, it has some important features that other biological phenomena do not have. The most important of these is what I have called its `subjectivity'. There is a sense in which each person's consciousness is private to that person, a sense in which he is related to his pains, tickles, itches, thoughts and feelings in a way that is quite unlike the way that others are related to those pains, tickles, itches, thoughts and feelings. This phenomenon can be described in various ways. It is sometimes described as that feature of consciousness by way of which there is something that it's like or something that it feels like to be in a certain conscious state. If somebody asks me what it feels like to give a lecture in front of a large audience I can answer that question. But if somebody asks what it feels like to be a shingle or a stone, there is no answer to that question because shingles and stones are not conscious. The point is also put by saying that conscious states have a certain qualitative character; the states in question are sometimes described as `qualia'.

In spite of its etymology, consciousness should not be confused with knowledge, it should not be confused with attention, and it should not be confused with self-consciousness. I will consider each of these confusions in turn.

Many states of consciousness have little or nothing to do with knowledge. Conscious states of undirected anxiety or nervousness, for example, have no essential connection with knowledge.

Consciousness should not be confused with attention. Within one's field of consciousness there are certain elements that are at the focus of one's attention and certain others that are at the periphery of consciousness. It is important to emphasize this distinction because `to be conscious of' is sometimes used to mean `to pay attention to'. But the sense of consciousness that we are discussing here allows for the possibility that there are many things on the periphery of one's consciousness -- for example, a slight headache I now feel or the feeling of the shirt collar against my neck -- which are not at the centre of one's attention. I will have more to say about the distinction between the center and the periphery of consciousness in Section III.

Finally, consciousness should not be confused with self-consciousness. There are indeed certain types of animals, such as humans, that are capable of extremely complicated forms of self-referential consciousness which would normally be described as self-consciousness. For example, I think conscious feelings of shame require that the agent be conscious of himself or herself. But seeing an object or hearing a sound, for example, does not require self-consciousness. And it is not generally the case that all conscious states are also self-conscious."

See-> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Pap ... .prob.html

[...] I am using the paper by Searle as the focal point to limit the way people like to digress. [...] I do not like it when the discussion/conversation devolves away from the topic. It is my intent to act as a moderator to uncover as much agreement as possible without ignoring any reasonable coherent objections. [...]

Now then, what do you think of Searle's opening section under the Question of "What is Consciousness?"

Heeltap wrote paraphrasing Searle:

But if somebody asks what it feels like to be a shingle or a stone, there is no answer to that question because shingles and stones are not conscious. The point is also put by saying that conscious states have a certain qualitative character; the states in question are sometimes described as `qualia'.

I agree with the definition of qualia however I object that shingles and stones not being conscious implies that consciousness is all-or-nothing. Shingles and stones are not conscious but consciousness is gradually acquired by evolutionary categories of things according to their evolutionary status as labelled by biological complexity. Thus beetles are further along the road to consciousness than are stones, and ant colonies further still perhaps. We are at the summit of consciousness possibilites as far as we know but imagine, if you will, some anthropomorphic god who would experience infinitely more qualia than we ever could. Consciousness is relative as to both quality and quantity at any one spot of time and place.



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I doubt if potted biography adds anything to discussing qualia and consciousness. My selection of events from my long and daft life may be nothing like Heeltap's selection from Heeltap's intellectual career. For all we know Heeltap may have suffered from an overbearing wife and been a foot soldier but what difference this makes to his arguments about consciousness is moot at best. Now, if Heeltap or I were neuroscientists we could supply matters of fact to the arguments but we aren't so what does it matter what irrelevant stuff we did for our day jobs or our reading matter?

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To Martian Visitor: May we not change our minds, or learn variations on some foregoing version of our thoughts?

heeltap,

By `consciousness' I simply mean those subjective states of sentience or awareness that begin when one awakes in the morning from a dreamless sleep and continue throughout the day until one goes to sleep at night or falls into a coma, or dies, or otherwise becomes, as one would say, `unconscious'.

I wouldn't say this is the definition of consciousness, but we know what he is taking about. It is also overly presumptuous to say that stones and shingles are not conscious, all we know for sure is that they are not conscious like us.


He says that he has the answer and then calls it tentative soon after, and ultimately he is in the same speculative position any one who is not a neuroscientist is.

From the link provided:

Conscious states are caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain and are themselves higher level features of the brain. The key notions here are those of cause and feature... Of course, like any causal hypothesis this one is tentative. It might turn out that we have overestimated the importance of the neuron and the synapse.

Anyone at the forums has just as much a chance as Searle does of answering questions of consciousness. There is no less emphasis of personal opinion here. The opinion is just from someone that is not yet a member of these forums.

Wanabe, Searle is a published and respected philosopher!

Belinda,

I understand that, but he is not a published and respected neuroscientist.

Wanabe says " Anyone at the forums has just as much a chance as Searle does of answering questions of consciousness. There is no less emphasis of personal opinion here. The opinion is just from someone that is not yet a member of these forums."

So wanabe if everybody's opinion is just an opinion(a typical dismissive adhominem argument), then the opinions of nonphilosophers should be ignored outright. Searle is a philosopher of mind and I think his opinion counts more which is why I bothered to attempt a discussion about his paper directly addressing the problem of consciousness.

I could not even get this discusion rolling in a positive direction, thanks in part to MV's dropping in purposely with a poison pill. We haven't even started discussing the paper's ideas in full and someone has dismissed the source based on what they think are Searle's credentials. This is such a dissappointment. Too much is evaluated based on who we are rather than the content of what is said or written. This is not the way philosophy is done Folks. I have Searle's book entitled _Mind, Language and Society_. I have skimmed it and part of the ideas in the book were nascent in the paper I provided. He expands on his ideas more fully in the book and I was intending to use it while discussing the paper which is narrower in scope.


One last thing, The topic of consciousness is under collaborative study by several scientists and thinkers in several disciplines under the heading of Cognitive Science and it includes AI people , cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers and physicists and others even artists. I should not have to even mention this to anyone who has been reading up on the topic. Oh well enjoy the day.


ps: the courtesy of providing basic info like age and education by participants is not related to the topic. It is about being human to each other as you would in a face-to face situation like in a small class or like in a twelve-step support group meeting. I gave basics about myself so I would be recognized as having something worthwhile to contribute. The way this and other threads I have recently jumped into have gone after a 5 year absence make me want to leave. Too much negativity, too much cleverness and frankly too many bad attitudes which are devoted to the personality side of things rather than the topic posted for discussion.

heeltap,

Searle states explicitly "The most important scientific discovery of the present era will come when someone -- or some group -- discovers the answer to the following question: How exactly do neurobiological processes in the brain cause consciousness?" This is a science question, being answered by a philosopher, this in not an adhominim it's a fact, that his opinion is just as good as ours.

His opinion does matter, as do all of ours, but it doesn't trump the facts uncovered by neuroscience.

If you think Searle has something important to say just share it. Don't complain about how things work, it isn't going to help. Just dive in to what you want to say.

ps: the courtesy of providing basic info like age and education by participants is not related to the topic. It is about being human to each other as you would in a face-to face situation like in a small class or like in a twelve-step support group meeting. I gave basics about myself so I would be recognized as having something worthwhile to contribute. The way this and other threads I have recently jumped into have gone after a 5 year absence make me want to leave. Too much negativity, too much cleverness and frankly too many bad attitudes which are devoted to the personality side of things rather than the topic posted for discussion

Okay. I am a dilettante who is trying to focus on an idea that I feel is important. I cannot isolate my intellectual life from the rest of my life.I think there may be a male/female difference of perspective here.

"The most important scientific discovery of the present era will come when someone -- or some group -- discovers the answer to the following question: How exactly do neurobiological processes in the brain cause consciousness?"

If you think Searle has something important to say just share it. Don't complain about how things work, it isn't going to help. Just dive in to what you want This is a science question, being answered by a philosopher, this in not an adhominim it's a fact, that his opinion is just as good as ours.

His opinion does matter, as do all of ours, but it doesn't trump the facts uncovered by neuroscience.

There is a basic assumption in the quote from Searle that I don't think is settled one way or the other: that consciousness is caused by neurobiological processes, i.e. consciousness is an artifact of the "material world". It would be very premature, I think, to suggest that facts uncovered by neuroscience have proven this to be true. I hope our discussion of this issue will also include the very respectable alternative assumption that consciousness, whatever it is, may be able to affect, and in some cases even cause, neurobiological processes.

There is a basic assumption in the quote from Searle that I don't think is settled one way or the other: that consciousness is caused by neurobiological processes, i.e. consciousness is an artifact of the "material world". It would be very premature, I think, to suggest that facts uncovered by neuroscience have proven this to be true. I hope our discussion of this issue will also include the very respectable alternative assumption that consciousness, whatever it is, may be able to affect, and in some cases even cause, neurobiological processes.

No they haven't proven it, the pursuit of neuroscience is to figure out how the brain works in every aspect. They do know a great deal more about "consciousness"(thoughts that happen in the waking brain) then Searle does. This assumption you have of neuroscience as a whole is wrong. There is nothing stating that consciousness isn't a two way street in regards to the material world. The base may be in the material world, that however does not mean the whole thing can't reside in many places(transference of ideas). Modern neuroscience is very new we have only had the imaging technology for a short time.

I think though what we will get into by continuing this discussion is the soul, not consciousness or mind.

This assumption you have of neuroscience as a whole is wrong. There is nothing stating that consciousness isn't a two way street in regards to the material world. The base may be in the material world, that however does not mean the whole thing can't reside in many places(transference of ideas).

I agree with you -- I don't believe that neuroscience itself makes any such assumptions. However, there is a tendency for many neuroscientists and philosophers (Searle is an example) to assume that all answers will be found in the world of material things and causality. Maybe they are correct -- but other arguments should be carefully considered as well.

H2ouse,

All our answers thus far, have been from the material world. The non-material world of ideas helps us to arrive at those answers.

We can't make factual (other)arguments from other realms. We are physical beings as far as we know with certainty, we may be other things, but we can only work with physical facts in the meantime.

There are other arguments, but they are for now, merely speculative.

H2ouse,

All our answers thus far, have been from the material world. The non-material world of ideas helps us to arrive at those answers.

We can't make factual (other)arguments from other realms. We are physical beings as far as we know with certainty, we may be other things, but we can only work with physical facts in the meantime.

There are other arguments, but they are for now, merely speculative.

Wanabe, I don’t fully agree with you that the other arguments are all purely speculative, and thus differ in kind from arguments from the material world. My reasoning works as follows:

It can be argued that the existence of the material world is speculative in the same sense. Unless one takes a solipsistic position -- that the material world is identical with the qualia which one experiences (and I use the term “one” advisedly, since true solipsism recognizes only a single perceiver) -- the only way we can truly justify belief in the material world and other people is through a probabilistic argument: the objects, and natural laws, and people that we experience must exist because they appear to work with incredible consistency, so long as we accept the contingencies of their appearance (for example, you cannot see a cat in the dark, and if it turns around it looks different). The totality of our experience suggests a probability approaching 1 that they are “real”.

Plus, the apparently similar experience of other people (assuming that we accept their existence) seems to have supported this consistency throughout human history. Thus, the fact that languages have developed as they have to describe a material world, and the fact that human culture has successfully used these descriptions to plan and make changes to this material world in a consistent – though sometimes unfortunate – way, provides an even higher statistical probability that the material world does exist and follows most of the principles that we have identified. This is particularly true of phenomena that we and others seem able to experience often and directly, with almost no contradicting data, because of the huge amount of experience such data represents.

There are of course examples where we, and in fact all of human culture, have been proved wrong, but these examples can be explained either because they are caused by anomalies of our perceptual systems (leading to optical illusions etc.) or because they are remote from our everyday perceptions (I’m talking here of such things as the change from Ptolemaic to Newtonian to Einsteinian physics.) But the phenomena of consciousness and intentionality are NOT remote from us – we experience them every day. To me this is a strong prima facie argument that they represent an aspect of reality – and if cultures through history have sensed that they are non material, I can go along with that too.

At least for now, I also find it very hard to accept the argument that physical reality is what causes consciousness, because it is only through consciousness that I and others are aware of physical reality in the first place. So my own feeling is that the onus of argument for a physical basis to consciousness, and related arguments about free will, still lies with the group of thinkers who would deny the “folk wisdom” that is embodied in human experience and culture.

H2ouse,

I agree that we can't be 100% sure that the material world is all there is. Everything we know though comes from the materialistic system. Other things can be reasonable and logical, but hove no grounds to stand on as they are only ideas that can't be supported with anything other than ideas.

I do also believe in the non-material world strongly, but it is a belief, not a fact.

the phenomena of consciousness and intentionality are NOT remote from us – we experience them every day. To me this is a strong prima facie argument that they represent an aspect of reality – and if cultures through history have sensed that they are non material, I can go along with that too.

Of course they are part of reality... They are part of our physical body, they may be things other than just physical, but we can only account for the physical part. Gravity itself is not physical, it is derived from physical mass however. That does not mean than gravity is physical just like the physical body from which it emanates. We can say the same of the brain and consciousness. Both the physical and nonphysical do exist. The non-material world may or may not be wholly dependent on the physical world we have yet to find out, likely that we never will.
Particles are a different class of physical. We understand things in science as physical that does not mean the thing in it self is physical.

I agree that we can't be 100% sure that the material world is all there is. Everything we know though comes from the materialistic system. Other things can be reasonable and logical, but hove no grounds to stand on as they are only ideas that can't be supported with anything other than ideas.

I do also believe in the non-material world strongly, but it is a belief, not a fact.

Wanabe, What you are writing seems to fit my own world view, except for one thing. I think we are even more sure of the existence of our own consciousness than we are of the material world. Our knowledge of the material world is arguably a "secondary reality", compared to the primary reality of our consciousness itself. Your statement suggests you believe that consciousness comes from the materialistic system. Clearly this is a possible position to take, because many people do, but there is something reflexive and recursive in it that makes it hard to accept

I think I prefer to keep an open mind on it, and admit that we can be sure that consciousness (at least, our own consciousness) exists, and that this may NOT come from the materialistic system. If so, consciousness is something that is reasonable and logical but can be supported from direct experience rather only with ideas.

Not well expressed, I'm sorry, but if you read between the lines I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say.