An easy solution to the hard problem of consciousness

Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester, has emerged as one of the most thoughtful critics of attempts by Darwinists and neuroscientists to explain the human being. I have been reading his review essay in The New Atlantis of David Chalmers new book: The Character of Consciousness (2010).

Here is Tallis' statement of Chalmers most important contribution to the philosophy of mind:

It was as the clarifier of questions that David Chalmers made his initial reputation. It was he who first proposed the now-standard distinction between the "easy" and the "hard" problems of consciousness. The easy problems are "those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms," while the paradigmatic hard problem is "the problem of experience." An organism possesses the trait of experience when we can say that it is like something to be that organism, as Thomas Nagel put it. This is true most notably and most elaborately of organisms like you and me; it is also probably true of most vertebrate animals, but probably not true of any plants.

The easy problem models human consciousness in functional terms. As a radar screen continually recreates a map of objects moving in the air at a distance, so an individual's consciousness continually recreates a map of the world around that person. I am here, in front of me is an obstacle I must walk around to reach the door, and over there is the door by which I can exit the room.

Taking this approach, science can say a lot about what is going on. Information is gathered through the senses, carried by means of electro-chemical wiring, and is processed in various dedicated regions of the brain. That's the input. The output is behavior. Darwinian theory can then produce models of the evolution of such a functional mind. As a spider must see in three dimensions in order to acquire its prey, so our ancestors had to map a course around obstacles in order to seize prey and avoid predators.

The hard problem is this: why do we have to be consciously aware in order to function? A radar screen doesn't have to feel anything to do its job. If you point out that radar screens are operated by conscious human beings, I reply that this isn't necessary. One could easily imagine a computer operated airport control tower. Why are we consciously aware whereas the computer is not? That's a good question for Darwinists. How does conscious awareness happen in the human brain? That's a very good question for neuroscientists.

Tallis thinks that Chalmers puts way too much on the easy side of the ledger. Is information really information if it exists only in an array of neurons or marks on a sheet of map paper? Perhaps it is only information when it is part of a human awareness?

I haven't digested Tallis' critique well enough to respond to him directly, but I will add some thoughts I have been mulling over for a long time. I think that free will (something that Tallis is very concerned about) is the same thing as consciousness. To be conscious is to step back into (or carve out) a space between cause and effect. The conscious being can do what my dad frequently advised me to do when I was a child: stop and think. A being who can consciously reflect on information gathered from the environment and then respond in flexible and unpredictable ways may well be a more successful being in Darwinian terms.

That I am right is indicated by one of the features of human consciousness (an presumably some animal consciousness) that genuinely distinguishes it from the merely functional mind that is operated by automatons. Human experience is marked by pain and pleasure, happy and unhappy passions. So far as we can tell, no wind-up toy ever had a bad day or was hurt or disappointed. Can Darwinian theory account for the pain and pleasure?

I say yes. If consciousness arises through Darwinian mechanics because a conscious creature is genuinely free to some degree, about to respond in a genuinely flexible and unpredictable ways, a problem emerges. Unconscious creatures (like bacteria, presumably) pursue their Darwinian goals automatically. Natural selection adjusts the behavior of the bacterial species to meet its environment automatically.

A creature that is genuinely free cannot be governed that way. If a free creature is to pursue its Darwinian imperatives (and so continue to exist as a species) it cannot be merely scripted to behave in an appropriate way. It has to be bribed. It does what it has to do to survive and reproduce not automatically, but because it feels good to so and bad to do otherwise.

If I am right about all this, then human beings are genuinely free in a way that simpler organisms, let alone inorganic objects, are not. That is a fundamental position in philosophy. A second consequence is that inorganic matter has potential dimensions that visible only to biology and the human sciences. The human body consists of organs, which consist of cells, which consist of molecules. That simple fact worries a lot of people. Are we merely the sum of our molecular constituents and their actions? That view is reductionism.

Apparently, those molecular constituents have a potential for wondrous things beyond the imagination of all previous physics. It is not what we can be reduced to that is important. It is what surprises were hidden in the simplest elements that make for a soul.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

Great topic, KB. At first blush, your read on "pleasure" seems to make a philosophic argument for hedonism.

A few random observations. The other day I was eating a few broiled chicken legs and the flavor sensation was so wonderful I was practically transfixed by it. Then it occurred to me that I was basically eating an animal and that there were likewise other animals that would gladly consume me with equal relish. I began to wonder if we are the only animal to whom such thoughts ever occur and of course came up with the answer that we don't know.

Tangent here is that, according to Joseph Campbell, it is perhaps this very line of thought that gave rise to humanity's first religious/spiritual instincts.

That would argue for consciousness being a product of evolution.

On the other side, especially in quantum theories involving "entanglement" there is the idea, as you suggest, that such consciousness is part of the very fabric of our being... perhaps even the ground of it. That's certainly what vedanta argues.

Again, interesting topic. Thanks for posting it.

[peter]

Im considering that conciousness is before DNA any comments

[Bill Fleming]

Peter, I'll go just a short distan down that path with you. When it comes to consciousness, as KB points out, we are faced with both the "easy" and the "hard" peoblem. What he left out was the fact that we don't as yet even know the answer to the "easy" one. As far as we know, the brain is a machine and consciousness resides in it. When the brain ceases to function, the light of consciousness apparently goes out along with it. Further, if the corpus collosum is severed so that the left and right hemispheres no longer communicate with each other, the individuals perception is that of having two "selves."

Add to this the essential observation that the most essential functions of our brain are hard wired so as to disallow interference from the conscious mind, and we start to see questions challenging KB's assertion about free will arise. Certainly he's not suggesting that he makes a conscious decision to take every breath or trigger every heartbeat. Is he? Are you?

[larry kurtz]

Cool post, KB. I would just add that we are just another species competing for food and reproduction on a planet with finite resources.

[Ken Blanchard]

Thanks, Bill. I very much doubt that any other terrestrial organism ever asked itself the questions that you suggest. There is some indication that Chimpanzees have a "theory of mind", that is, that a chimp may be aware that some other creature doesn't know something he knows. A chimp knows, for example, that an experimenter with a bag over his head couldn't see where the goodies are hidden.

That is a long way from putting oneself in the other's shoes or paws as it were. I think that that level of empathy and reflection is probably a result of the lon evolution of reciprocity and social exchange among humans. Moral thinking drove intelligence, rather than vice versa. That is a very gratifying truth, if it is a truth, to someone trained in classic political philosophy.

Peter: No. Not on this world. Even if one goes as far as the philosopher Hans Jonas to say that all life is conscious, even down to the single cell, DNA still has to be there first. I am not considering Gods and angels here. That is above my pay grade.

[Ken Blanchard]

Thanks, Larry. I am well aware of what you mention. We find ourselves in the position of gardeners if only because we are the only species that can conceive of a garden. All life is precious.

[Bill Fleming]

Yeah, that's a new twist on the old "bag over the head /goodies" scenario alright. ;^)

[Donald Pay]

Consciousness is neurons and chemicals structured and operating in certain ways. At what point consciousness develops as an emergent property of the neurological system is an interesting question.

I work with people with brain injuries or other cognitive deficits or with mental illness, so I see a lot of different aspects of human consciousness that has been altered by these deficits. Typical human consciousness requires a type of memory that tracks autobiographical information. For example, many people with Asberger's syndrome have a reduced autobiographical memory (though they may be very gifted in other sorts of memory). We seem to think of consciousness as one thing, but it is a very complex, depending on which areas of the brain are and are not working "normally."

[larry kurtz]

@markos Markos Moulitsas
Ha ha ha Obama is so stupid he uses teleprompters! But Republicans using them are okay. 4 minutes ago

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/01/1060719/-Teleprompters-are-stupid--only-when-Obama-uses-them

[John Walker]

An interesting approach toward this topic is the book THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL BRAIN by James Jeans. I'm not saying I really buy into James' theory, but it's sure sort of neat to think about.

[Ken Blanchard]

Donald: I tend to agree with your statement that "Consciousness is neurons and chemicals structured and operating in certain ways." I would only amend it to read that consciousness IS the operation of that system. I would not, however, declare it as if it were knowledge. Dualists like David Chalmers still have a case to make.

I appreciated your reflections on mental dysfunction as a probe to be used in the analysis of C. It is certainly a very complex phenomenon.

[Bill Fleming]

Whew. I finally made it all the way through the review you attached, KB, and what a complete waste of time it was. For far more fertile ground on the topic, I recommend "I Am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter and "The Information" by James Gleick. Walker's recommendation of Jayne's book (above) is also a good one but somewhat outdated. He'll no doubt enjoy the way Gleick has followed up.

[Ken Blanchard]

Bill: about the Tallis essay, one of us is wrong.