Understanding Consciousness - Is Materialism Compatible with Qualia - Essay Example

Understanding Consciousness: Is Materialism Compatible with Qualia? The concept of consciousness has baffled philosophers and scientists throughout the ages. The answer to the question ‘what is consciousness?’ promises an explanation of what humans are as opposed to other living creatures on the planet, the key to the mystery that places us on a higher plane of existence. In seeking the answer to this question, several theories have been proposed that either affirm the existence of such a concept or that attempt to explain where this elusive seat of the self might hide within the human form. Descartes perhaps illustrated the proof of the idea of consciousness best when he indicated “I think, therefore I am.” This often quoted statement came about as Descartes attempted to prove that even if there is some sort of great deceiver working to alter his perceptions of his own existence, the fact that he could be fooled proved he had a conscious mind. “Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something” (Descartes, 1989). This concept of separating thought from physical perception also led to the development of a theory of consciousness called dualism, which stipulated that the conscious mind was something other than and apart from the physical brain, yet also somehow connected so as to receive the sensory impressions of the body while exerting a tremendous amount of control over it. Dualism has since been thrown over in favor of the concept of materialism, in which it is thought the mind and the brain are somehow one and the same entity, yet how thoughts form and where imagination takes place remains elusive. This paper, then, will explore the concepts of consciousness beginning with a current understanding of the term and the basic ideas involved in materialism before investigating the concept of qualia to determine whether materialism and qualia are compatible. In attempting to determine a solid definition of the term ‘consciousness’, one will discover it is a very difficult idea to pin down in specific words. “Like most words, ‘consciousness’ does not admit of a definition in terms of genus and differentia or necessary and specific conditions” (Searle, 1999). When attempting to determine a specific definition, distinctions are made between what Sigmund Freud termed as ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ which helps to clear up the issue somewhat. Conscious thoughts are generally recognized as those that deal with identifying the textures and feelings of the various objects around the physical body, the plans one might have for how the day should be spent or the daydreams of what the future might hold. Other thoughts, such as those that control one’s heartbeat and breathing, determining which muscles must be used in order to pick up a pencil or placing the words one is about to speak in the appropriate order, tend to fall more into the realm of the unconscious. The field of study presently being conducted may also affect the definition of consciousness. For example, Brendan McGuigan (2007) identifies different meanings depending upon whether the field of study is philosophy in which it is identified as the process of focused thought, physiology in which it is thought to be the interaction between various levels of the brain or psychology in which generalization, a sense of time and a sense of self are all present. In each of these definitions, there are some fundamental dividing lines that keep them from being interchangeable. For example, the philosophical and physiological definition generally exclude the practice of dreaming because it is not focus thought and the physical processes that occur between layers of the brain are shut down during sleep, but the psychological definition includes dreaming as part of the process. However, the philosophical definition can include dreaming depending upon the philosopher and the criteria set forth in the definition of what entails ‘focused’ thought. Finally, there are a number of other concepts that have been linked with consciousness such as knowledge, attention and self-awareness. However, knowledge should not be confused with consciousness because there are too many states in which knowledge plays too little a part. These states include anxiety for no apparent reason or nervousness that has no direct connection with knowledge (Searle, 1999). In addition, although it has been described as something characterized by focused thought, there remain too many exceptions to the rule for this to be an adequate working definition. “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” (Searle, 1999). For example, when one is consciously focused on completing a work assignment, they remain aware of background noise, the itch of the wool of their clothing or the slightly uncomfortable temperature of the room. Self-conscious also does not equate with the concept of consciousness because to be aware of sudden sounds or uncomfortable temperatures does not necessarily indicate that one is self-aware enough to feel shame at a wrong action. For purposes of this discussion, then, the words of John Searle (1999) will provide our working definition of the term. “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’.” This definition eliminates the problem of the dream state and limits the discussion to humans, as the only beings that can irrefutably demonstrate sentience on a high level. As if the definition wasn’t hard enough, the real difficulty enters the equation when one attempts to explain the ‘why’ of consciousness. “The hard problem is explaining how subjective experience arises from neural computation. The problem is hard because no one knows what a solution might look like or even whether it is a genuine scientific problem in the first place” (Pinker, 2007). This is the question dualism attempted to answer by not answering. Dualism held that the mind was some non-corporeal substance that existed in harmony with, yet apart from, the body. However, without a substance with which to work, even the earliest philosophers such as Descartes himself, could not explain how signals would pass from this unsubstantial mind to the materially existing brain. “[The directives from mind to brain] are not physical; they are not light waves or sound waves or cosmic rays or streams of subatomic particles. No physical energy or mass is association with them. How, then, do they get to make a difference to what happens in the brain cells they must affect if the mind is to have any control over the body?” (Dennett, 1991: 35). Dennett uses the analogy of a ghost to explain the obviousness of the fundamental issue here. An existence that is able to defy the laws of gravity, glide effortlessly through walls and therefore render itself undetectable is also a substance that cannot, by definition, effect any changes upon the material things that don’t affect it. Because of this major issue of how the mind works, the dualists adopted the stance that the mind was made of a substance that could not be found and therefore could not be explained – in effect, ignoring the question. Most scientists and philosophers admit that the mind must have some kind of connection with the brain in order to order the quick reactions and subjective, individual responses observable by others. This line of thinking is referred to as materialism because it holds that there is some form of physicality to both mind and brain, if they are not one and the same organ, and that this connection can and someday will be discovered. Essentially, these theories revolve around the idea that the mind and the brain are a single entity, somehow communicating both action and theater at the same time. These theories express “the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain” (Pinker, 2007). Through neurological study, it has been found that “conscious states are caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain and are themselves higher level features of the brain” (Searle, 1999). The differences experienced in the colors of the rainbow, the smell of the flowers, the daydreams of an idle hour spent under a palm tree on a beach, are all caused and differentiated by the different neurons that fire in different areas of the brain at different rates of activity. “When we see a ball roll down a hill, we appreciate that the rolling is neither the ball itself, nor something apart in some other world – but merely an aspect of the ball’s extension in space-time; it is a description of the ball, over time, seen from the viewpoint of physical laws” (Minsky, 2002). While it is now understood that what we think of as the mind is simply the activity of the brain, it is still not quite understood how this works, which has led to several theories of materialism that have been advanced and rejected over the years. One such theory is referred to as Cartesian materialism. This theory is described by Dennett as “the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of ‘presentation’ in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of” (1991: 107). In other words, Cartesian materialism presents the idea that the mind has a sort of ‘theater’ included within a specific area, which is where all of the events, actions, thoughts and daydreams take place, each in their proper order according to when they first arrived in the wings of the central stage. However, the idea that this central stage exists in a single anatomical location within the brain is reading things a bit too simplistically. According to O’Brien and Opie (1999), this central location may not be a location at all, but rather a special form of neural medium that differs in some form from other materials. “Conscious experience results from a (possibly distributed) process of presentation; a process whereby informational contents enter consciousness as a result of being encoded in a special neural medium (wherever in the brain this medium is realized)” (O’Brien & Opie, 1999: 940). Just how and when this is translated into conscious thought becomes the matter at issue as scientists have not yet been able to pinpoint the exact moment and activity at which observations, such as a point of light, translate into thought, as in ‘I saw a point of light’. Dennett argues vigorously against this theory of materialism in his book Explaining Consciousness. “The idea of a special center in the brain is the most tenacious bad idea bedeviling our attempts to think about consciousness” (Dennett, 1991: 108). Presenting an example of an arm that has fallen asleep failing to respond to the internal command that it should move, Dennett argues that consciousness must exist at the end of the streams of input and at the beginning of the streams of output. “However difficult it might be to determine in practice the precise location of the Continental Divide in the brain, must there not be, by sheer geometric extrapolation, a highest point, a turning point, a point such that all tamperings on one side of it are pre-experiential and all tamperings on the other are post-experiential?” (Dennett, 1991: 108). The problem with this line of thinking is that the Continental Divide, so to speak, does not exist along a constant, well-defined line that holds true for every neural reaction, every medium or every contributing factor. “The clarity of the peripheries gives us no guarantee that the same distinctions will continue to apply all the way in … We must stop thinking of the brain as if it had such a single functional summit or central point. This is not an innocuous shortcut; it’s a bad habit” (Dennett, 1991: 111). It is here that he interjects his own theory regarding the process of consciousness, which he labels the multiple drafts model. According to Dennett’s multiple drafts model, the brain receives information from the nervous system constantly, at many locations and subjects these impressions all at once along parallel tracks of editorial processes throughout the brain. “These editorial processes occur over large fractions of a second, during which time various additions, incorporations, emendations and overwritings of content can occur, in various orders. We don’t directly experience what happens in our retinas, in our ears, on the surface of our skin. What we actually experience is a product of many processes of interpretation – editorial processes” (Dennett, 1991: 112). Because these impressions are happening all the time and in multiple locations, there is no need for the brain to project a resulting image or thought onto a stage. Instead, it experiences, interprets and correlates all at once. In other words, that which we call consciousness is not a single, coherent ‘thought’ projected onto an internal stage for us to view and analyze as we might a photograph, but is rather a part of the process. Searle describes it in this way: “lower level neuronal processes in the brain cause consciousness and consciousness is simply a higher level feature of the system that is made up of the lower neuronal elements … there is no metaphysical obstacle, no logical obstacle, to claiming that the relationship between brain and consciousness is one of causation and at the same time claiming that consciousness is just a feature of the brain” (Searle, 1999). With this connection between the brain and consciousness made, on a physical level and with the understanding that consciousness happens in conjunction with neural impulses not on a central theater but more in terms of the molecules of water collectively making up the concept of wet, it is possible to explore the concept of qualia. While consciousness has been scientifically linked with the physical properties of the brain and therefore emerges as little more than a biological process, that does not mean it lacks any features that make it unique among other biological features. Searle pinpoints the concept of subjectivity as a case in point. “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” (Searle, 1999). The way that these impresses feel to each individual can be described as a conscious state; this state is also referred to as qualia. “Qualia include the ways things look, sound and smell, the way it feels to have a pain, and more generally, what it’s like to have experiential mental states … Qualia are experiential properties of sensations, feelings, perceptions and, more controversially, thoughts and desires as well” (Gregory, 2004: 1). In the face of the physical reality of consciousness, scientists continued to point to qualia as evidence of a non-physical aspect to the concept. “The subjective feature of conscious mental processes – as opposed to their physical causes and effects – cannot be captured by the purified form of thought suitable for dealing with the physical world that underlies the appearances” (Nagel, 1986: 13). This subjective state in which each individual has different impressions of pain, joy, warmth and caresses is what has convinced us that there is such a thing as consciousness yet also makes it difficult to determine just what the true nature of this phenomenon might be. This concept of the subjective nature of thoughts seems to be in direct conflict with the idea of a process of biologically occurring neurological processes that occur within everyone. If everyone’s consciousness is the result of such mundane biological processes that occur as a result of being human, how can two people have completely different subjective experiences of the same event? “This phenomenon is unlike anything else in biology, and in a sense it is one of the most amazing features of nature” (Searle, 1999). Whether or not qualia exist seems to depend to a great extent upon the more specific defining characteristics assigned to the term. For example, Dennett indicates that qualia should be intrinsic, private, incorrigible and non-physical (Gregory, 2004: 1). Since they cannot be detected and are not physical, they cannot exist and are therefore simply treated as a part of the overall concepts brought into the discussion by Descartes and dualism. Dennett himself indicates that qualia only seem to exist because we, as humans, do not recognize how we compare one objective state we are confronting with another that we remember. To illustrate this, he uses the example of a comparison of the color red in a Santa Claus suit with the color red found in the stripes on the American flag in a process conducted by a computer system as an analogy for how a human being accomplishes the same feat. The computer system is able to look into its file for the color red used in its stored information (the remembered color) to compare it to the color in front of it without perhaps realizing that is what it is doing. “The sort of difference that people imagine there to be between any machine and any human experiencer … is one I am firmly denying: There is no such sort of difference. There just seems to be” (Dennett, 1991: 375). In other words, what has been called qualia is nothing more than a biological comparison between an object before us and a remembered object stored in our databanks, while the process of recovery remains relatively unconscious. To further highlight his case, Dennett discusses the natural evolution of human beings’ perception of color as a life-saving device that helped them distinguish between plants and berries they could eat. Seeming differences in subjectivity are simply the evolutionary differences inherent in the ability of each individual to perceive things that are built in to our biology as a means of natural selection. He uses the example of a preference for or against tripe. “If eating tripe were to spell prereproductive doom in the future, only those of us who were ‘naturally’ disposed against eating tripe would have an advantage” (Dennett, 1991: 382). These variations in preferences are not so much built upon subjective states of a higher state, or qualia, but rather an ability to distinguish between various secondary qualities (such as color, smell, etc.) as a means of survival. Those individuals with a genetic disposition in their taste buds and olfactory glands, for example, to find the taste or smell of tripe to be distasteful would have a greater chance of survival should this particular food source turn out to be disastrous in some form. “In this way the brute come-and-get-it appeal of sex and food, and the brute run-for-your-life aversion of pain and fear get stirred together in all sorts of piquant combinations. When an organism discovers that it pays to attend to some feature of the world in spite of its built-in aversion to doing that, it must construct some countervailing coalition to keep aversion from winning” (Dennett, 1991: 384). This again becomes little more than a biological response to a push for survival. More than simply being a reaction to ancestral or even personal experience, these impressions may also be the result of a great deal of pre-conditioning, such as in the innate aversion to snakes found in most humans. According to Dennett, this is an ancestral reaction of primates to the deadly creatures that hunted them on the ground and in the trees as well as a remembered symbol of evil taught to us since we were small and a great many other theories, myths and experiences that have all combined to create the sense that a snake equals something bad to be avoided. In this manner, each individual creates their own seemingly subjective consciousness which is actually little more than a remembered response to some previous, perhaps ancestral stimulus. In all of this, the concept of qualia is predicated on an assumption that it must be brought about not as a subjective response, but rather as a biological response to some specific function or purpose. While it has been argued that a physical model of the brain/mind connection necessarily rules out the concept of qualia, there remain several researchers that don’t see this as a natural conclusion. “Indeed, I don’t see that a scientific approach can rule out in advance that we could discover, empirically, that qualia are intentional, functional or cognitive … Importantly, there is nothing in the conception of qualia that I am advocating that is incompatible with the claim that a quale [singular form of qualia] is a physical state, just as heat is molecular kinetic energy and light is electro-magnetic radiation” (Gregory, 2004: 1). To illustrate his point, Gregory creates the example of a pair of identical twins, one altered at birth to completely invert their color scale so that they tend to see opposite of what their other twin sees. In such a case, he suggests, “when one twin is looking at a red thing and the other is looking at a green thing, they can have two states that are physically and qualitatively the same, but are functionally and representationally different, one representing red and the other green. And if both twins are looking at the same object, they may have states that are functionally and representationally the same but qualitatively different” (Gregory, 2004: 3). In reflecting the same reaction while viewing different things, these twins demonstrate the concept that qualia exist simply because they are able to achieve the same rates of excitation or activity as the other based not upon physical stimulus itself, but upon the individual perception of it. However, in neither case can the responses be completely the same, if only because one twin is relating this experience to the name ‘red’ and the remembered images of blood and fire trucks while the other is associating the experience with the name ‘green’ and associations of Granny Smith apples and a healthy lawn, for example. This illustrates the subjective element of the response in choosing which objects to relate the present object with. In further examples, he shows how these inversions eventually would become re-adapted to accurately reflect the world regardless of what might have been perceived physically as responses are compared with the responses of others and subjective decisions are made that counter the actual visual perception. Because subjective interventions can take place, Gregory says, qualia must exist. While Dennett suggests that the concept of qualia is little more than a sort of wishful thinking on the part of the individual as a means of explaining his or her unique set of genetically pre-disposed and culturally reinforced remembered survival techniques, Gregory insists that they are instead a combination of things including physical reactions. “Qualia are red flags that representations wave at intelligent processors. The intelligent processing that results is a product of three things: the pre-conscious mechanisms that determine what representations are to acquire qualitative character, the post-conscious mechanisms that actually do the intelligent processing, and finally, the qualitative character that helps to make the representations accessible to the intelligent mechanisms” (Gregory, 2004: 7). In other words, the mind is presented with various sets of perceptions at all times, just as is suggested by Dennett, in that it may be presented with an apple and receive the impressions of red, shiny, round based on appearance and juicy, sweet, tart based on memory of other apples. The combination of these impressions cycle through intelligent processing to indicate something good to eat while further processing has indicated it is something that is sitting on a store shelf and must be paid for before taking a bite along with all the impressions necessary to reach this conclusion. The involvement of the intelligent processes in creating the final impressions held by the particular individual means that qualia are necessary as a function of consciousness and that they must exist despite the claims made by Dennett. “To give the qualitative character itself the credit for creativity, flexibility, etc. is like giving the printing press the credit for the ideas that are printed” (Gregory, 2004: 7). With this understanding of qualia and materialism, it is now possible to consider whether the two concepts are compatible. Looking at the words of Dennett, it would seem obvious that they are not. In Dennett’s terms, the processes of consciousness necessarily rule out any possibility that qualia might exist because there is no room in this theory for the coming together of ideas at a particular point. This is partially as a result of Dennett’s founding principle in presenting his theory that all aspects of dualism would be removed, which included the Cartesian materialist conception of a ‘theater in the mind’. Instead, he suggests that the discrepancies seen in the various experiences and impressions of individuals is little more than the evolutionary detritus and cultural reinforcements that have been stored in the memory banks of experience, whether shared, inherited, taught or personally remembered. Since impressions occur simultaneously and all at once, there is no time for the intervening processes suggested in the concept of qualia to take place. There is no room for a pure subjectivity not genetically created instantaneously upon being exposed to the object in question. A flaw in this line of reasoning, however, exists in accounting for the higher level thoughts and dreams that become associated with these impressions. A bird, too, might see something round and red and shaped like a berry and attempt to eat it, but the intervening qualification that this berry is sitting on a store shelf and must be bought before it can be eaten is something the bird will never learn no matter what this learning might mean for its survival. Despite Dennett’s argument, then, it seems obvious that there is some room for the concept of qualia within the realm of the materialist viewpoint. “It is important to recognize that in non-pathological forms of consciousness we never just have, for example, a pain in the elbow, a feeling of warmth, or an experience of seeing something red, but we have them all occurring simultaneously as part of one unified conscious experience” (Searle, 1999). Although all of the experiences we have are recorded in a single instant, they are likewise related to all other instances we have had, which are specific to the individual and therefore highly subjective. We don’t feel the pain in the elbow without also identifying what has caused this pain and how to make it stop. This concept was illustrated in the examples provided by Gregory and others in which those who are (theoretically) altered in order to see inverse color relationships would eventually adjust their impressions so that they have the correct idea in mind when they see something that to them looks green but they know should appear red, for example. In addition, the ability to recall these events is similarly varied from one individual to another as are the filters we place upon our impressions as a result of comparisons with others which further develop this sense of qualia within the context of the materialist viewpoint. The impressions we choose to give weight to, the conscious ideas that come to us during the course of a day, are also subjective in their selection. Why, for example, do we notice the small itch at the back of our neck while we’re working instead of the low hum of the computer fan under our desk? “’Intentionality’ is the name that philosophers and psychologists give to that feature of many of our mental states by which they are directed at, or about states of affairs in the world” (Searle, 1999). This concept, too, hints at the presence of qualia as individuals determine what they should ‘pay attention to’ and what can be left on the periphery. Although we are often considered to be unconscious of the hum of the computer under the desk, the truth is that we are able to shift our attention to this sound at any time we desire, but to do so, we must have a concept of thought priority which again points to the concept of qualia. This is because the thought priority of one individual will not necessarily be the thought priority of another, thereby leading to different mental states and perhaps even oppositional modes of experience. The hum of the computer may be comforting to me when I choose to ‘hear’ it because it tells me the computer is working correctly while it may prove disastrously distracting to someone else who is more accustomed to working in perhaps absolute silence. In acknowledging consciousness is a higher function of the brain, it seems likely that the idea of qualia occur as a natural result of the impressions that occur biologically throughout the brain as first one, then another, qualification enters the process. While this may not be a specific ‘theater’ of thought, the ability to amend, adjust or even refute what our senses tell us argues strongly for the presence of qualia even within the context of a materialistic model of consciousness. Indeed, it seems the plausible explanation for these types of thoughts occurring, conflicting, canceling each other out or enhancing and evaluating the impressions that are received. Understanding qualia as a means of both making sense of the thousands of impressions received each second as well as a method by which these impressions are interpreted and subsequently acted upon or otherwise dealt with explains how the materialistic consciousness operating on identical biological functions as that of thousands of other individuals can produce an equal number of different results in the minds of the observers. While there is much to be learned about the function of the brain and its association with the mind, it does seem apparent that qualia are indeed compatible with a material consciousness. References Dennett, Daniel C. (1991). Explaining Consciousness. New York and London: Little Brown and Company. Descartes, R. (1989). Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. John Veitch. New York: Prometheus Books. Gregory, R. (2004). “Qualia.” Oxford Companion to the Mind. (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available 20 March 2007 from McGuigan, Brendan. (2007). “What is the Definition of Consciousness?” Wise Geek. Conjecture Corporation. Available 20 March 2007 from Minsky, Marvin. (14 July 2002). “Minds Are Simply What Brains Do.” Truth Journal. Leadership U. Available 20 March, 2007 from Nagel, Thomas. (1986). The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Brien, Gerard & Opie, Jon. (1999). “A Defence of Cartesian Materialism.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Vol. 59, pp. 939-963. Pinker, Steven. (19 January, 2007). “The Mystery of Consciousness.” Time Magazine. Available 20 March 2007 from Searle, John R. (1999). “The Problem of Consciousness.” Available through the University of Southampton 20 March 2007 Read More