[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
same point is that of a creature, let us say a rat, which has various sensations but
whose functional description might be reproduced in an insentient robot: it seems
perfectly conceivable that a robot be so designed as precisely to reproduce the
propensities of a minded rat--and if so, functional properties would be insufficient to
guarantee even the presence of mental properties.
It is worth noting that we cannot readily produce such cases in respect of
propositional attitudes, unless we base them upon cases in which experiences are
varied. Thus we can say that the creature with red experiences will believe that things
are red, since he will exercise the concept red in judgements about the perceived
world; while the creature who sees things as green will believe objects of perception
to be green: different beliefs, same causal role. But it is doubtful that we could
preserve functional role by permuting beliefs whose con-
-38-
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file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm
tent did not differ in this derivative way. This difference between sensations and
propositional attitudes evidently relates to the point that our conception of the latter
ties them more closely to behaviour and the third-person perspective; the first-person
perspective on sensations is what induces us to regard them as independent of
behaviour in the ways exploited by the above counter-examples to functionalism. It is
not that such examples are entirely uncontroversial--too much hangs on them for
that--but they should give us serious misgivings about accepting the functionalist
account of supervenience. Once again the special character of consciousness
frustrates attempts to explain its nature in other terms. Functionalism is not the
answer to our problems.
Our efforts to arrive at a satisfactory theory of the relation between mind and body
have not met with total success. We have, it is true, gone some way towards
explaining how the mind can be different in nature from the body yet be intimately
connected with it. But we have not explained how a physical organ of the body,
namely the brain, could be the basis of consciousness--how a physical object can
come to have an 'inner' aspect. One might be tempted to conclude that the mind-
body problem, so stated, is insoluble: but it is hard to see how we can really accept
this pessimistic conclusion, for surely there is something about brains that makes
them conscious, whether we can know and understand it or not. We should persist in
the hope that some day philosophy (or perhaps science) will find the answer.
-39-
3
CONSCIOUSNESS
R ECENT years have seen a tremendous growth of interest in the topic of
consciousness. Once considered taboo, it is now discussed even by neuroscientists.
The genuineness of the problem is becoming increasingly recognised, along with its
seriousness. My view of the topic has developed significantly since the first edition of
this book in the direction of a new approach to the problem. In this chapter, I shall
restate the puzzle of consciousness and explain some of the new thinking that has
taken place.
Let us begin by reminding ourselves of the general nature of the material world, as it
is now conceived. It consists of causally interacting objects disposed in space, each
made up of material parts. These objects are subject to a number of physical forces,
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-...on%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm (44 of 175) [11.07.2007 13:54:08]
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm
such as gravity and the electromagnetic force, and they behave in ways prescribed
by physical laws. Before the dawn of consciousness, some time in late evolutionary
history, this was all there was in the universe--inanimate, insensate matter, blindly
colliding, shrinking and expanding. Basically, it was a world of whirling lumps. But
now consider conscious experience: this appears to be a phenomenon of another
order entirely. Subjective awareness is no part of the physical world of material
clumps in space. When consciousness is added to the world we get something
genuinely novel, not just a rearrangement of what we already have. Consciousness is
something extra, not just the old particles in a new configuration. The theory that
serves to explain the world without experience seems radically inadequate to explain
the world that contains it. And there is a pressing problem about relating experience
to the physical world: how do
____________________
This chapter is new to the 1996 edition.
-40-
experiences of red, say, relate to what happens in my brain, which looks just like a
particularly fancy rearrangement of matter?
When we reflect on consciousness in this way, noticing its discontinuity with the
physical world, we are apt to be struck by the thought that it is a very peculiar thing. It
cannot be seen or touched, or studied under a microscope; yet it is for each of us the
most obvious reality in the world. No matter how delicately you probe the brain you
will not encounter it in the crevices and corners of that greyish dumpling. Where is it?
It seems a queer sort of phenomenon, an anomaly--a miracle even. It refuses to slot
into our general scientific picture of the universe. How could such a unique
phenomenon have arisen from matter, and what kind of entity is the brain such that it
can generate it?
In response to these questions an array of answers suggest themselves. An extreme
response, which has been and still is quite common, is simply to deny that
consciousness exists. This doctrine is called eliminativism: it says that there literally
are no thoughts and sensations and emotions. All this is prescientific nonsense,
analogous to ghosts and witches and ectoplasm. There is just the material brain, with
its neurons and chemicals and electrical transactions. Eliminativism will have nothing
occult and miraculous, and consciousness looks too much like an exception to our
general view of how things work--magic not mechanism.
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-...on%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm (45 of 175) [11.07.2007 13:54:08]
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm
A second response, quite opposite in tendency, is to embrace the miracle, declaring
that our current world-view is indeed grievously limited. On this view, we need to
acknowledge the pervasive presence of the supernatural. Consciousness is taken to
be the direct expression of God's will, or at least a sign that there is more to reality
than natural forces. Consciousness is the immortal soul made manifest. Thus there is
something magical in the world, something beyond the reach of reason and science.
When the brain produces consciousness this is like the miracle of water turning into
wine--an event for which there is in principle no natural explanation. Things are
spookier than science admits. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl karpacz24.htw.pl
same point is that of a creature, let us say a rat, which has various sensations but
whose functional description might be reproduced in an insentient robot: it seems
perfectly conceivable that a robot be so designed as precisely to reproduce the
propensities of a minded rat--and if so, functional properties would be insufficient to
guarantee even the presence of mental properties.
It is worth noting that we cannot readily produce such cases in respect of
propositional attitudes, unless we base them upon cases in which experiences are
varied. Thus we can say that the creature with red experiences will believe that things
are red, since he will exercise the concept red in judgements about the perceived
world; while the creature who sees things as green will believe objects of perception
to be green: different beliefs, same causal role. But it is doubtful that we could
preserve functional role by permuting beliefs whose con-
-38-
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-...on%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm (43 of 175) [11.07.2007 13:54:08]
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm
tent did not differ in this derivative way. This difference between sensations and
propositional attitudes evidently relates to the point that our conception of the latter
ties them more closely to behaviour and the third-person perspective; the first-person
perspective on sensations is what induces us to regard them as independent of
behaviour in the ways exploited by the above counter-examples to functionalism. It is
not that such examples are entirely uncontroversial--too much hangs on them for
that--but they should give us serious misgivings about accepting the functionalist
account of supervenience. Once again the special character of consciousness
frustrates attempts to explain its nature in other terms. Functionalism is not the
answer to our problems.
Our efforts to arrive at a satisfactory theory of the relation between mind and body
have not met with total success. We have, it is true, gone some way towards
explaining how the mind can be different in nature from the body yet be intimately
connected with it. But we have not explained how a physical organ of the body,
namely the brain, could be the basis of consciousness--how a physical object can
come to have an 'inner' aspect. One might be tempted to conclude that the mind-
body problem, so stated, is insoluble: but it is hard to see how we can really accept
this pessimistic conclusion, for surely there is something about brains that makes
them conscious, whether we can know and understand it or not. We should persist in
the hope that some day philosophy (or perhaps science) will find the answer.
-39-
3
CONSCIOUSNESS
R ECENT years have seen a tremendous growth of interest in the topic of
consciousness. Once considered taboo, it is now discussed even by neuroscientists.
The genuineness of the problem is becoming increasingly recognised, along with its
seriousness. My view of the topic has developed significantly since the first edition of
this book in the direction of a new approach to the problem. In this chapter, I shall
restate the puzzle of consciousness and explain some of the new thinking that has
taken place.
Let us begin by reminding ourselves of the general nature of the material world, as it
is now conceived. It consists of causally interacting objects disposed in space, each
made up of material parts. These objects are subject to a number of physical forces,
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-...on%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm (44 of 175) [11.07.2007 13:54:08]
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm
such as gravity and the electromagnetic force, and they behave in ways prescribed
by physical laws. Before the dawn of consciousness, some time in late evolutionary
history, this was all there was in the universe--inanimate, insensate matter, blindly
colliding, shrinking and expanding. Basically, it was a world of whirling lumps. But
now consider conscious experience: this appears to be a phenomenon of another
order entirely. Subjective awareness is no part of the physical world of material
clumps in space. When consciousness is added to the world we get something
genuinely novel, not just a rearrangement of what we already have. Consciousness is
something extra, not just the old particles in a new configuration. The theory that
serves to explain the world without experience seems radically inadequate to explain
the world that contains it. And there is a pressing problem about relating experience
to the physical world: how do
____________________
This chapter is new to the 1996 edition.
-40-
experiences of red, say, relate to what happens in my brain, which looks just like a
particularly fancy rearrangement of matter?
When we reflect on consciousness in this way, noticing its discontinuity with the
physical world, we are apt to be struck by the thought that it is a very peculiar thing. It
cannot be seen or touched, or studied under a microscope; yet it is for each of us the
most obvious reality in the world. No matter how delicately you probe the brain you
will not encounter it in the crevices and corners of that greyish dumpling. Where is it?
It seems a queer sort of phenomenon, an anomaly--a miracle even. It refuses to slot
into our general scientific picture of the universe. How could such a unique
phenomenon have arisen from matter, and what kind of entity is the brain such that it
can generate it?
In response to these questions an array of answers suggest themselves. An extreme
response, which has been and still is quite common, is simply to deny that
consciousness exists. This doctrine is called eliminativism: it says that there literally
are no thoughts and sensations and emotions. All this is prescientific nonsense,
analogous to ghosts and witches and ectoplasm. There is just the material brain, with
its neurons and chemicals and electrical transactions. Eliminativism will have nothing
occult and miraculous, and consciousness looks too much like an exception to our
general view of how things work--magic not mechanism.
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-...on%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm (45 of 175) [11.07.2007 13:54:08]
file:///D|/The%20Character%20of%20Mind%20-%20An%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Philosophy%20of%20Mind.htm
A second response, quite opposite in tendency, is to embrace the miracle, declaring
that our current world-view is indeed grievously limited. On this view, we need to
acknowledge the pervasive presence of the supernatural. Consciousness is taken to
be the direct expression of God's will, or at least a sign that there is more to reality
than natural forces. Consciousness is the immortal soul made manifest. Thus there is
something magical in the world, something beyond the reach of reason and science.
When the brain produces consciousness this is like the miracle of water turning into
wine--an event for which there is in principle no natural explanation. Things are
spookier than science admits. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]