Consciousness: Inexplicable and Useless Too - Essay Example

? Why does Lewis [Lewis Harry A. (1998) ‘Consciousness: Inexplicable – And Useless Too object to Chalmers’ view of the ‘hard problem’? Is he rightin his objections and why? (Name) (University) (Course) (Tutor) (Date) Chalmers view on the hard problem Chalmer argues that state of consciousness does bring about one of the most alarming issues within the science involving the mind of human beings. He attributes all that we intimately know to the experience of conscience, yet he suggests that indeed, there is nothing so hard that lacks human explanation. Mental phenomena have always been vulnerable to the influence posed by scientific investigations. However, Chalmer debates that the consciousness has always found a way and reason to resist such things in a stubborn way. The explanations given by those considered scholarly have often failed to meet the required target1. He further states that many people have been lured into believing that problems are intractable and for that reason there is no way a formidable explanation exists. He supposes a direct confrontational approach to a problem solving. His view is that a problem could be isolated in terms of the hard part first where this part is separated from those parts that are considered tractable and an account given as to why it appears difficult to give a conclusive explanation of the problem. He is first to point out the fact that he disagrees with the reductive methods of problem explanation while addressing consciousness. His argument is based on the fact that these reductive methods eventually fail inevitably and thus do not address what is considered as the hardest part of that problem at hand, hence no solution. His take is that application of a non-reductive explanation is more effective and this leads to what he deems as a naturalistic account. Achieving consciousness through this process brings about organizational invariance as well as structural coherence and this is coupled with some view of information that is thought to be double-aspect oriented. According to Chalmer, easy problems are those which explain the information integration through a cognitive approach; do explain the phenomena of a mental state reportability; has the ability to categorise, discriminate against, and is able to respond to a stimuli in the environment; the ability of such a mental system to have its internal state considered personal; the phenomenon of attention focus; having the separation between being awake and asleep; and one that can deliberately exhibit behaviour control. To this scholar, problems are only easy because they have more to do with functions and cognitive abilities. Chalmer holds that the really hard problem when it comes to consciousness is that of experience but he is perplexed at how systems become subjected to experience. The hard problem is considered hard because it has nothing to do with the performance of these identified functions because persistence of a problem is still seen even after an explanation of the performance of all those related functions has been given2. Lewis’s objections and if they are fair Lewis is a bit categorical with issues raised by Chalmer in his analysis of the hard problem. His main argument is based on the fact that even when Chalmer applies his theory, the problem is still seen to be harder than he puts it in the first place. This he attributes to the fact that Chalmer does not put into consideration the required level of account of what Lewis considers as ineffability of the consciousness! On that argument, Lewis has objections on what Chalmer does in listing concepts of reportability and awareness when he refers to the problems thought of as being easy. To Lewis, this is not a convincing approach to giving an explanation to a problem. The hot issue held by Lewis as far as the Chalmer’s article is concerned is the fact that the ineffability of the mentioned experience does actually preclude a theory, which happens to link the process leading to experience and has an explicit argument towards this conclusive criticism. His problem with structural aspects of experience comes from the fact that the space given for manipulation of experience is indeed limited. Whether or not the experiences can be given clear description and classified is not clear to him. In his debate, Lewis thinks that problems associated with consciousness come about in the process of accepting the fact that humans are normally subject to their own conscious experiences. In essence, those experiences do work to give resistance to explanations of a given kind, in which case, other mysterious phenomena do allow. To Lewis, the mere fact that the conscious experiences are normally ineffable does complicate the problem at hand thus making it even harder to give an explanation as might have been thought of by Chalmers. This could be attributed to the fact that such a scenario undermines the problem being presented by use of a reductive method in giving an explanation to the problem3. Also, Lewis’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s argument makes it seem a bit controversial. In my opinion, I think the views expressed by Lewis are fair enough because it is Chalmer’s mistake not to define the scope of his explanations. Thus, Lewis and other critics assumed that his argument presented a conclusive approach to the topic and left no room for further analysis. If Chalmer would have admitted that even after solving the hard problem he still felt there was some sense of discomfort, then Lewis criticism would have been quite unfair. How Chalmers could reply to Lewis’s objections Chalmer could stand his ground but argue that he decided to avoid complex explanations by taking a very simple approach. From his point of view, he should take a middle ground because there are those who seem to concur with his explanations. He needs to argue that he decided to take a simplistic approach and also deemed it right to think scientific. As has been noted in many studies, a reductive view normally gives a convincing simple explanation of the phenomena in many ways, even if it does not apply to the case of consciousness. He could still base his argument on the fact that he cannot satisfy two opposing views since the reductionists think that he has overestimated the kind of difficulty inherent in a hard problem while on the other hand the non-reductionists think that he has underestimated this difficulty. This could be seen from the explanations given by some contributors that the hard problem is still hard, although explaining reportability, discrimination, and other phenomena is still even hard. What Chalmer failed to do was avoid conclusive explanations. He would rather have left the whole topic open for discussion and avoided the finality approach. Calling upon some critics such as Lewis would have made it easier for him to avoid such aggressive criticism he has encountered. It is only after the criticism that he realizes that the issue is still open for research. Also, Chalmer needs to accept the fact that there is need to explain issues such as discrimination, reportability and others more than just dwelling on performance of identified functions. Chalmer also would respond by giving a thorough stand on what he perceives the intimate relationship between the consciousness and thought is since some critics think he does not think so. Chalmer could still argue that he was more concerned with the hard problem but the harder problem and therefore more research and explanation needs to be sought on what happens after the hard problem has been solved. He could further allude to the fact that his study was not based on ineffability but rather on the concept of hard problem which he has addressed comprehensively. The complexities that come after solving the hard problem are not part of Chalmer’s issue he sought to address. Whether Lewis is right or wrong In my view, Lewis is right. This is because the conscious phenomena do need to have a first-person perspective of the problem. Besides, the hard problem has the possibility of occurring to someone considered not to possess the conception of another problem. When one tries to solve a problem through the proposed approach by Chalmer, complex scenarios are encountered which end up raising an even harder problem. This is because the complex situation actually does bring about epistemic tension or what could be described as discomfort in the person’s normal conception of consciousness. This issue is not explained by Chalmer’s approach and he assumes that everything stops with the explanation given yet it has neglected the issues that arise in the process of solving the hard problem4. I could perceive it this way, that the harder problem is the one to be given an explanation because the hard problem will eventually fall into the harder problem and as such, its explanation would already have been unconsciously given in the process. This could also help avert the complexities that do arise while one is trying to solve the hard problem. In my opinion, Chalmer has a very narrow view of the eventuality and as such his argument could be considered as being half-baked. Is it fear of venturing into the world of the unknown or is it a sophisticated escape route taken by him for not being able to explain the phenomena arising out of handling the ‘hard problem’? I think yes. His quick conclusion on the outcome of handling the hard problem could help explain my observation. The best approach that he should have taken would have been stating categorically that even after solving what he considered hard, he felt something was still amiss. It is a point of acceptance as is opposed to denial! When we critically look at the situation, we find that this hard problem actually does break into two. The first piece is that which is the most epistemic and that this part needs to involve other minds. This implies that the single mind might not give its explanation and thus results into epistemic discomfort! He might however, find an escape route from this criticism by arguing that he only decided to take a simplistic approach. Given the huge debate this topic elicited, it is still not right to argue that Lewis was right or he was wrong. Further studies need to be conducted to establish if indeed solving a hard problem creates an even harder problem due to the complexities that do arise during the process. Lewis might have been right at some point but also missed other things that might be considered quite important to this analysis. Bibliography Chalmers David J., Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Department of Philosophy: University of Arizona, 1995 Chalmers, D.J. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford University Press, 1996 Lewis, H. “Consciousness: Inexplicable - and useless too?” Journal of Consciousness Studies 1998: 5:59-66. Read More