The Conscious Dimension

by Allan Chubb

The Philosophy of Consciousness

The Origin of Consciousness

Philosophers today approach the study of consciousness by dividing their approach into two categories, the easy problem and the hard problem, although in reality neither is really easy. The part described as the easy problem involves trying to discover what is going on physiologically and biochemically in the nervous system, and particularly in the brain, when we are experiencing consciousness. This is known as the Neurological Correlate of consciousness, or NCC. Much work is being done in this field although it must be said that neuroscience has a long way to go.

The hard problem involves how consciousness can be related to the physical world and this, of course, is the ancient problem of the epistemic gap, how the mind and body relate to each other. The philosopher, Colin McGinn, was of the opinion that we are not clever enough to understand consciousness completely. Other philosophers have reached a similar conclusion but explain it by saying that consciousness is what philosophers call a fundamental. A fundamental is something which does not reduce to anything else. In many ways the hard problem seems unresolvable unless we accept that consciousness cannot be reduced to a physical explanation.

Does this mean that the pursuit of the easy problem, the NCC, is pointless? As long as we realise the limits of this approach it is a valid pursuit and we may learn a lot from it. The danger is that people will think that the NCC is a sufficient explanation of consciousness. The philosopher, Daniel Dennett, has written a book entitled ‘Consciousness Explained’ in which he attempts to explain away the mystery of consciousness by tracing its evolutionary roots. The man in the street who experiences consciousness daily in his working life is unlikely to find this a satisfying explanation, as indeed some philosophers do not.

Problems of Monism and Dualism

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) and Pierre Teilhard (1881- 1955) both questioned the origin of consciousness and came up with similar explanations. Just as more complex physical objects are known to be made of simpler physical objects, the atoms, they reasoned that there must be rudimentary forms of consciousness from which consciousness as we know it was formed. Both Russell and Teilhard then took the step of saying that consciousness is another dimension of matter. In other words, the atoms possess a rudimentary amount of consciousness, or as Teilhard put it, matter has an inside and an outside. The outside is the physical side that we observe with our senses and the inside is the conscious dimension that we only observe when we happen to be that matter. This results in a philosophy termed panpsychism or panprotopsychism. It is the view of the school of philosophers known as monists, although not all monists would agree with the philosophy that all matter is conscious. The alternative school of philosophy, the dualist school, thinks that the physical world and the conscious domain are separate entities. There are problems for both positions, the dualists finding it difficult to explain how the conscious mind affects the body and vice versa, and the monists having difficulty explaining free will, such as it is. Some hope is now given to the monists in the way that quantum theory suggests that on occasion matter behaves as if it has a will of its own, as seen in the two slit experiment.

Issues of Physiology

The problems of the monist philosophers do not stop here however. There are two more problems to deal with. The first is the problem of the apparent granularity, or particulate, nature of matter such as the electron. Putting the problem succinctly, how is it that the activity of electrons can produce the experience of consciousness as we know it, as a unity? The second problem about unity of experience relates to the anatomy of the brain. We have seen that different modalities are located in different areas of the brain and that various locations in the brain are involved in even one modality. Therefore, why is it observed by the conscious person as a unity? Philosophers and scientists are looking at entanglement in quantum theory to see if this explains these puzzles.

Meanwhile those scientists and philosophers exploring the easy problem have raised questions surrounding such situations as the split brain patient and the finger flexing experiment. Let us look at the split brain experiment first. When patients suffer from very severe epileptic seizures brain surgeons have previously resorted to cutting the corpus callosum which is the bridge between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and carries most of the nerves communicating between the two hemispheres. This operation was performed to stop the spread of epileptic activity of the brain which caused the severe seizures. The operation achieved this but it was some time before the various medical specialists realised that , in effect, there were two persons within the skull, one operating in the right hemisphere and one operating in the left.They were not completely unrelated but since different mental activities are located in the two hemispheres there was sometimes conflict between the two when certain decisions had to be made. This resulted in such phenomena as one hand trying to reach for something while the other hand tried to grasp it to restrain it. This led to much investigation by psychologists about how these two hemispheres now worked.

Thus by allowing different images to fall on each of the hemispheres of the brain it was possible to do many investigations to discover how differently the two hemispheres of the brain react. A full account of these investigations can be found in ‘The Philosophy of Mind”, edited by Jonathan Glover, (pages 111 to 125).

Another psychological situation has been investigated which is relevant to the philosophy of consciousness. The subject for the experiment was wired up to instruments to detect his physical and mental activity while flexing his finger. The object of the experiment was to detect the nervous activity involved in finger flexing which reached the cerebral cortex before or after the subject was aware of it. The instruments indicated that the flexing occurred before the conscious impression. An account of this can be found in ‘The Emperor’s New Mind’ by Sir Roger Penrose, (pages 568 to 572). This is, of course, a controversial experiment and some have drawn far reaching conclusions from it. Whether these are justified or not is a matter for further investigation. It should be realised that many routine activities are delegated to lower centres in the brain, even complex activities like riding a bicycle. So it may be that finger flexing is such an example. Most such activities start out as consciously controlled and then are delegated to the activity of lower centres. However, consider a situation where a person is deciding whether to make a long trip. It is probable that a lot of conscious mental activity will take place while planning and preparing for the trip, if the person decides to go.

We have shown that we do not observe the environment directly but are dependant on radiations and situations activating our sense organs. Further, we then depend on nerves relaying these stimulations to the relevant areas of the brain where they are processed at the subliminal level before being raised to the conscious level for value judgements and decisions. This is the point at which the physical world and the conscious mind meet forming the subliminal/liminal interface. In this sense our nervous system is our servant, presenting us with choices on which we can then make conscious value decisions. We have our likes, dislikes and preferences. It would appear that despite the claims of the proponents of the finger flexing experiment, that because we make value decisions, consciousness has an important role to play. It may be said that consciousness is in the driving seat. Before moving on from the role of physiology we must consider points made by various philosophers. We have seen Daniel Dennett’s explanation of why monkeys find red disturbing in the chapter on The Perspective of Evolution. Has Daniel Dennett explained away consciousness as he claims? It is for you to decide.

The Edenic - Scientific Views

David Chambers assumes that consciousness exists and does not reduce to anything else. However, he does draw the distinction between what he calls the Edenic view of consciousness and the scientific view of consciousness. We have already come across this difference. Children start out with the view that the world and reality are exactly as we see them. In other words a red and green apple is really red and green out there and water is hot or cold according to the temperature of it. Indeed there are realist philosophers who hold this view. However, the more analytical mind of the scientist persuades them that this is not so and that colour, taste, sounds, smells and feeling of warmth or cold are all created in the mind. In other words consciousness is imbued on things by the mind. I refer to this as the human frame of reference. Perhaps the two coincide in that it is the only reality that we have.

The Reality of The Self

Other philosophers have debated the issue of whether ‘I’ really exists. Bertrand Russell used introspection and came to the conclusion that since he could think about ‘me’, then ‘me’ must really exist. Other philosophers who came after him were not so convinced. Gilbert Ryle, who was influence by the behaviourist school of psychology, came to the conclusion that since when he looked into his mind he only found a collection of dispositions, that ‘I’ and ‘me’ did not exist. That is to say he only found a tendency to respond to situations in given ways, each appropriate to the individual situation. The weakness in this position can be explained if you consider the analogy of gravity acting on a body. Gravity acts on each particle of matter in the body individually, pulling on it, but the body responds as a whole. It has a centre of gravity from which it reacts to the gravitational force. In a similar manner, when the mind reacts to situations a coordinated response is usually required and this requires something in the mind that makes a judgement. This could well be described as the ‘me’ or ‘I’.

Value judgements are often required as Wittgenstein emphasised. Further, he pointed out that people play roles in life. For example, some are wives, mothers and daughters, not to mention the role they might play if they are employed, such as doctor, teacher or shop assistant. You will observe that there are many variations of this situation. Further, the roles can call for many different expressions. Consider the difference in the roles of the therapist and that of the site manager on a building site, or between the artist and the policeman.

Philosophy progressed from this stage with the analysis of language. Wittgenstein pointed out that people in different roles in life will often use the same word with different emphasis. The word ‘doctor’ might have a different connotation for a parent than for a scientist. This approach was taken farther by Ayer and Austin who considered whether words which described emotions or human attitudes, such as love or despair, could be considered of any value, preferring words with a strictly scientific meaning, such as temperature or velocity. Much of this has receded into the past now with the increased interest in consciousness. However, it remains an issue whether words always convey what we mean them to communicate, even if we use words accurately. Can our internal thoughts always be communicated adequately with words? Certainly Pierre Teilhard, who developed some very complex ideas, resorted to coining new words to try to communicate such thoughts. However, most of us find that language can sometimes be ambiguous. It is due to considerable redundancy in the functioning of the nervous system that we are often able to cope with such ambiguity. For example, if you ask someone “How did you find the garage?” the reply may describe directions to the garage or the quality of the service there.

Perception

Current interest in consciousness has received support from brain imaging techniques which can be related to the individual’s report of what they are experiencing. This had led philosophers like David Chalmers, who is particularly interested in human consciousness, to examine the whole subject in depth, beginning with perception. David Chalmers notes such scientific findings about perception as how the colour of objects is affected by the colour of the background. Artists use this when emphasising a feature in a picture. Photographers are very aware that the effect which they are trying to capture can be achieved by selecting the colour of the illumination. Sometimes coloured lights are used, but often picture are taken in the early morning or the evening when the quality of light is particularly favourable.

Another aspect of perception which interests philosophers is that of space and distance. Why does an object in front of you, such as a table or ball, appear to be ‘out there’? Of course, you can answer the question with explanations based on the disparity of the images in the left and right eyes and other visual clues such as variations in tones and the presence of shadows, but this is not really the question that is being asked. The answer is that it is part of the mystery of consciousness. Before delving deeper into the mystery of consciousness let us consider other forms of perception such as hearing, taste, smell and bodily feelings.

With hearing, sound seems to originate from a location in space. You may again give a technical answer to this situation. It is particularly pertinent to me since I had a mastoid operation at the age of seven which caused slight damage to the reception of my right ear. As a result I sometimes find it more difficult than others to locate where a sound comes from, such as a bird singing in a tree. Again, such an answer begs the question. The complete answer is that it is part of the mystery of consciousness.

A further mystery is why the modalities are so different in terms of experience. Why do vision, spatial perception, hearing, taste smell and bodily feelings all produce such a different impression on our consciousness? Bodily sensations present a further mystery because we can locate where they come from in space. An interesting experiment which was performed by Sperry, already mentioned, has shown that there is an innate tendency for a specific area of skin to form neural connections with the somesthetic sensory area which normally represents that piece of skin. You will again observe that this is a technical answer which does not really explain the appearance of bodily sensations.

Psychologists have further been interested in how far these perceptions are innate or how far they are learned. The visual cliff is one such investigation.

The baby will not go beyond the edge of the visual cliff which may indicate that the perception is innate, but not all psychologists agree with this conclusion. Many perceptions are of this nature and experiments show that the way an individual relates one modality of experience to another is largely innate. Explaining the relationship of the physical explanation and the experiments to conscious experience is the problem of the epistemic gap, and this remains.

Emotions

Besides these phenomena of perception there are the aspects of emotions, sensitivity and empathy. With time these can become very complex, although such factors as curiosity can be seen in the very young. Consider first the range of the unpleasant emotions such as anguish, remorse, shame, reproach, disgust and dread. Or consider some positive emotions such as delight, relief, admiration, sympathy, trust, liking and love. It is worth noting that the Greeks had at least four words for different kinds of love. It is hard to explain such a range of emotions in purely physical terms, as indeed it is impossible to explain relationships in this way. If you consider such relationships in practical terms, a relationship may even be with a situation, for example, you may say, “I love my job”. It is also interesting that people like to be thanked for what they do. Why should that be the case if physical explanations were able to completely suffice? John Lennox describes the physical explanations as “the mindless chatter of electronic circuits”. It seems that some aspects of consciousness cannot easily be reduced to physical explanations.

The Will

We have seen how from basic dynamic perceptions we develop various intellectual abilities and we have noted that from the youngest age the individual is an active agent in these learning processes. By the age of two years we observe instances of the individual trying to impose its will on the environment or other individuals as Piaget observed. Patrick Meredith commented, when a child learns the word “I”, he becomes a little dictator, at least for a while. People at all ages show the phenomena of intentionality, although in more sophisticated ways with age. The German philosopher, Nietzsche, went as far as to say that life is about the will to win, and that we should impose our will because the person who does this rules the day. You can see what this can mean when applied to the Nazis. Obviously other philosophers have disagreed with this position, as have some scientists. It is an issue of whether might is right. Brought into question here is the role of purpose. Kant observed that man is a moral animal and it would seem that this plays an important role in life. We observe it when we note that everyone recognises when they have been unjustly treated and the feeling of injustice that goes with it.

It is hard to pinpoint the stage in evolution when reflection first occurred. This may have had a purely practical use in the first place such as considering how best to catch food. However, at some stage men and women reflected on whether something was right or wrong and this led to the development of conscience. It is interesting that Nietzsche believed that the will should overrule the conscience, because he came from a line of Lutheran pastors, but reacted against this tradition. However, conscience is at the root of many mental health problems and a bad conscience can be very corrosive as most psychologists realise. Indeed, people often create elaborate defence mechanisms when their conscience is disturbed. This is all part of the issue whether there is an ‘I’ or not.

Most people do not query whether there is an ‘I’ or a ‘me’. Descartes famously observed, ‘I think therefore I am”. Some people just think, others think about thinking and some people even think about thinking about thinking. This leads on to a subject known as epistemology which is how we know what we know.

Epistemology

As we have seen, Piaget investigated how our understanding of the world around and within us develops but it still leaves us with the epistemic gap problem. How is it that we know not only that we know something, but also that we know when we do not know something? To say that we know or do not know something is not totally explained by describing how that knowledge comes about. There is still the conscious experience, a dimension not fully explained by physical or even practical explanations. For example, where does meaning come from and how is it that the world and the universe are comprehensible? All these aspects have to be considered if we are to develop a philosophy of consciousness.

The Evidence of our Senses

The problem seems to lie in the fact that almost all of us put so much faith in our senses, such as what we see, hear, touch, smell, or taste, and also our sense of balance. Now this is quite understandable since we rely on this evidence and the thinking based upon it for almost everything we do. Who can deny the achievements of man, based on the human perspective. The list is extensive and includes great works of art and literature, of science and technology, acts of humanitarian kindness and more. You may like to reflect on this.

Why then should we query our faith in the evidence of our senses and the thinking that we base on this? We have seen the difference between the Edenic and the scientific view of sensory perception. These form the basis of our thinking and people build understanding on their respective beliefs of reality, the human frame of reference. Do we perceive everything that exists?

Until relatively recently we had little reason to question the validity of this. However, with the advent of quantum theory, as we have seen, quantum weirdness is something which scientists accept but which does not fit into our rational scheme of thinking. Today philosophers recognise that the epistemic gap problem and quantum weirdness present us with the inadequacy of our conscious models. Although it is not part of mainstream thinking some of the accounts reported as out of body experiences are not easily dismissed and may suggest that we need to keep an open mind. Surely these examples alone have demonstrated that the mental models that we make of our external and internal environments are inadequate. The problem is compounded by the fact that most of our thinking is based on looking in on things. Most attempts to explain consciousness attempt to explain how consciousness arises out of our physical being. We cannot get outside consciousness to look in and see what consciousness is.

We have gone to great lengths in this book to demonstrate Bertrand Russell’s observation that the physical world and the conscious world are entwined, that is, intimately linked, (notice that I use the word ‘entwined’ and not ‘entangled’ which has other connotations). Anyone who doubts this should try drinking three cups of very strong caffeinated coffee immediately before trying to go to sleep. However, equally there are occasions when our conscious states affect our bodies, such as psychosomatic conditions like some types of asthma which occur when a person is worried.

Neither the simple problem nor the difficult problem are truly simple. However, if we realise that consciousness with all its limitations, quirks, idiosyncrasy and transient nature is the ultimate reality, in that we do everything with it, we realise that consciousness exists in its own right. There is a conscious dimension and it is the ultimate reality. When we realise this we realise that the models we make of the physical world are sometimes inadequate and we never experience the external world directly. These factors explain why the epistemic gap exists and will always exist. As Pierre Teilhard puts it, those people who are looking out into space for the answers to life are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. We must start with an examination of the human mind and what philosophy can tell us about it. Having said that, as Rita Carter observes in her book, ‘Mapping the Mind’, the human brain may never totally understand itself but men will not stop trying.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to Patrick Meredith. He was a physicist by training who became a teacher and ultimately a professor of psychology. He said, “Consciousness is a mystery and intended to be treated as a mystery”. Perhaps this is the ultimate human condition.