What is this 'Consciousness' stuff?
Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:10 pm
Some physicalists believe consciousness is an illusion. This view, though contradictory to our experience of consciousness as fundamental, is based on an irresistible logic. How do we know something is real unless another person can independently verify it? Real stuff must be objectively representable. Measurability is the acid test for reality. There is no ‘consciousness’ other than electrochemical processes in the brain.
Of course the physicalist position is full of holes. Even the most mundane of experience is not the same as its brain scan representation. Some of our experiences cannot be described in words at all. Reality appears to have a component invisible to science.
The physicalist would counter: how do you prove the reality of your ‘pure subjective experience’ to an independent observer? What is this extra stuff of ‘consciousness’ apart from measurable activities in the brain?
These are deep questions indeed – Does it make any sense to claim stuff that are beyond our objective grasp as real? Is scientific method the only way to study nature?
I think there are at least four possible ways to answer this question:
1. Yes. Some aspects of nature are beyond science. One need to have faith in a supernatural power.
2. No. Science can completely explain nature, given enough time and resources.
3. We will never know. What comes to us through science is all that is knowable. It doesn’t make any sense to speculate beyond that.
4. Yes. Nature has aspects beyond objective descriptions. These are accessible to man through direct experience. There is nothing supernatural about such a possibility.
I will go with the last option. Nature has aspects that cannot be captured in objective descriptions. Let us see how this might be the answer that makes the most sense, starting from the physicalist position.
Let us accept measurable things alone are real. There is no consciousness stuff. What we call ‘mind’ is an epiphenomenon, an echo of the chemical buzz in the neurones.
Yet there is one thing undeniable- the fact that we have real knowledge as in science. How did man, entirely composed of dead matter, come to possess knowledge? Why is nature comprehensible to this illusion of consciousness?
Let us explore the mechanism of objective knowing. Knowing has something to do with consciousness. But wait…consciousness is already ruled out as unreal and hence cannot be used to explain real knowledge. We can only say ‘knowing’ has something to do with the brain. Human brain must have a unique ‘knowing mechanism’. Like the ‘seeing mechanism’ involving cornea, lens, retina, optic nerves and vision neurons producing visual images, this ‘knowing mechanism’ generates knowledge. Let us treat it as a black box to begin with. The gears and valves of this mechanism are not obvious for the time being. It is ok for our purpose because the output of this black box, objective knowledge, is real and hence the black box itself must be real.
What exactly is this ‘knowledge producing black box’ and how can it be investigated?
Remember we are attempting to (objectively) know the mechanism of objectivity. One possibility is to look into its evolutionary history (I suspect this might be the only way to avoid the trap of self-referencing). History offers another level of objectivity in this unique case of the ‘knower’ trying to unearth facts related to its own genesis.
Evolution forms the background to understand everything related to living things – including ‘knowledge’. Do we see a history of knowledge in evolution? Other bodily functions such as vision have a history. Human eyes evolved from primitive light sensitive cells. How about the knowledge producing black box?
An evolutionary worldview must have place for pre-human modes of comprehension. A series of ‘tools of comprehension’ must have evolved in the history of life on earth. Our ‘knowledge producing black box’ is the latest addition to this collection. It is arguably the most powerful of such tools but by no means the only one. Man, product of a 3.5 billion yearlong evolutionary process, cannot claim his favoured mode of comprehension, ‘objective knowing’, as the only way. It is just one of the ways to comprehend certain aspects of reality, a useful tool evolved from something more fundamental.
We find it very hard to believe reality can be effectively tackled without “getting out” and forming an objective point of view. But this is how life flourished for 3.5 billion years. Therefore, true theories of knowledge should extend all the way back to the first living cell. Direct experience and intuition should be recognised as valid modes of comprehension, supplementing science’s third person view.
The fact of biological evolution, together with the reality of objective knowledge, forces us to postulate a ‘universal mind’, the source from which our own ‘knowledge producing black box’ must have evolved. The stuff called ‘dead matter’ might still be alive and breathing
Of course the physicalist position is full of holes. Even the most mundane of experience is not the same as its brain scan representation. Some of our experiences cannot be described in words at all. Reality appears to have a component invisible to science.
The physicalist would counter: how do you prove the reality of your ‘pure subjective experience’ to an independent observer? What is this extra stuff of ‘consciousness’ apart from measurable activities in the brain?
These are deep questions indeed – Does it make any sense to claim stuff that are beyond our objective grasp as real? Is scientific method the only way to study nature?
I think there are at least four possible ways to answer this question:
1. Yes. Some aspects of nature are beyond science. One need to have faith in a supernatural power.
2. No. Science can completely explain nature, given enough time and resources.
3. We will never know. What comes to us through science is all that is knowable. It doesn’t make any sense to speculate beyond that.
4. Yes. Nature has aspects beyond objective descriptions. These are accessible to man through direct experience. There is nothing supernatural about such a possibility.
I will go with the last option. Nature has aspects that cannot be captured in objective descriptions. Let us see how this might be the answer that makes the most sense, starting from the physicalist position.
Let us accept measurable things alone are real. There is no consciousness stuff. What we call ‘mind’ is an epiphenomenon, an echo of the chemical buzz in the neurones.
Yet there is one thing undeniable- the fact that we have real knowledge as in science. How did man, entirely composed of dead matter, come to possess knowledge? Why is nature comprehensible to this illusion of consciousness?
Let us explore the mechanism of objective knowing. Knowing has something to do with consciousness. But wait…consciousness is already ruled out as unreal and hence cannot be used to explain real knowledge. We can only say ‘knowing’ has something to do with the brain. Human brain must have a unique ‘knowing mechanism’. Like the ‘seeing mechanism’ involving cornea, lens, retina, optic nerves and vision neurons producing visual images, this ‘knowing mechanism’ generates knowledge. Let us treat it as a black box to begin with. The gears and valves of this mechanism are not obvious for the time being. It is ok for our purpose because the output of this black box, objective knowledge, is real and hence the black box itself must be real.
What exactly is this ‘knowledge producing black box’ and how can it be investigated?
Remember we are attempting to (objectively) know the mechanism of objectivity. One possibility is to look into its evolutionary history (I suspect this might be the only way to avoid the trap of self-referencing). History offers another level of objectivity in this unique case of the ‘knower’ trying to unearth facts related to its own genesis.
Evolution forms the background to understand everything related to living things – including ‘knowledge’. Do we see a history of knowledge in evolution? Other bodily functions such as vision have a history. Human eyes evolved from primitive light sensitive cells. How about the knowledge producing black box?
An evolutionary worldview must have place for pre-human modes of comprehension. A series of ‘tools of comprehension’ must have evolved in the history of life on earth. Our ‘knowledge producing black box’ is the latest addition to this collection. It is arguably the most powerful of such tools but by no means the only one. Man, product of a 3.5 billion yearlong evolutionary process, cannot claim his favoured mode of comprehension, ‘objective knowing’, as the only way. It is just one of the ways to comprehend certain aspects of reality, a useful tool evolved from something more fundamental.
We find it very hard to believe reality can be effectively tackled without “getting out” and forming an objective point of view. But this is how life flourished for 3.5 billion years. Therefore, true theories of knowledge should extend all the way back to the first living cell. Direct experience and intuition should be recognised as valid modes of comprehension, supplementing science’s third person view.
The fact of biological evolution, together with the reality of objective knowledge, forces us to postulate a ‘universal mind’, the source from which our own ‘knowledge producing black box’ must have evolved. The stuff called ‘dead matter’ might still be alive and breathing