Consciousness and reality

Descartes' "cogito" is not a syllogism but a profound mystical experience of one's reality. (Pavel Florensky)

It is all the rage these days for scientists to become interested in the question of consciousness. We want to explain this phenomenon, because it seems like the last bastion of metaphysics where physics cannot touch. No scientific materialist can resist such a challenge.

But consciousness is not simply a "phenomenon." It is the background of all phenomena. To assert that something exists is the same as saying, "I am conscious that it exists." If there is no consciousness, there is essentially no existence. We can imagine a closed system in which no conscious being exists. But such a reality is merely hypothetical. It would not--could not--have any meaningful existence outside of our own thought experiment, which is itself the product of consciousness!

Reflecting in this manner, one is slightly tempted by solipsism. Perhaps all of reality is actually the product of my consciousness. Yet this is only a very slight temptation, because it feels immediately absurd. In reality, I have so little control over my surroundings, so little understanding even of myself. If I am at all self-aware, I have the constant sensation of being a very small part of a vast universe which goes on existing whether I do or not.

So if the existence of the universe depends on consciousness, it certainly does not seem to depend on my consciousness.

Both of these reflections have such a strong intuitive appeal that I can't help but accept them both. I conclude that my own consciousness is in fact one small result of a much greater consciousness, to which all things in existence are attached.

The materialist will argue that all of my experiences are the result of processes which occur physically in the brain, and therefore there is no reason to posit any notion of immaterial consciousness. But this is only to explain consciousness as an external phenomenon, one which we can observe, test, and then circumscribe in physical theory. That is not at all what consciousness is. We cannot reduce consciousness down to anything else because it is the most fundamental fact of all, as Descartes sensed vividly when he said, "I think, therefore I am." The most fundamental fact is, "I am." But that fact is precisely consciousness, which is why for Florensky this is not a syllogism but rather a mystical experience, that is, a powerful awareness that we normally suppress.

This is why the name of God translates to, "I am." There is nothing more fundamental than that something exists. But that fact would no longer be a fact if it were not known. Hence the universe comes into being through the words, "I am."

Obviously our own awareness of the universe is very limited, and it is only made possible by our extraordinarily complex material composition (in particular, the brain). But as much as we might understand the human brain, we will never remotely penetrate the question of why there exists something rather than nothing, and in the same way we will never be able to theoretically circumscribe consciousness. Indeed, consciousness is that which circumscribes all our theories.

Instead, we ought to try to understand the whole universe as an outworking of this assertion, "I am." Although our own consciousness is receptive, seeking to understand that which precedes it, God's consciousness is an active one, calling things into existence. The physical complexity of our brains is a requirement for us because we need so many complex functions to be able to respond to the world as it exists. God, on the other hand, needs no complex parts, because His consciousness is all-encompassing.

We encounter here the mystery of human existence. If we retreat into our own minds, we encounter consciousness, and it is as if we ourselves were God. But if we look outward for even a moment, we realize that we are mere creatures, and it is only because of the absurdly rich genetic inheritance that we have received that we have even a drop of consciousness in us. We cannot decide whether we are creatures or creators.

Scientific materialism leaves no room for this mystery. It makes us into mere creatures because it wants to assert that we are creators. It is the ultimate irony. We are alone in the universe; apart from sufficiently complex organisms, there is no such thing as consciousness; the universe is empty, no one is listening, no one is watching. We therefore must make our own reality, except that reality is already imposed on us; we are mere creatures, desperately attempting to be creators on the basis of our intellectual capacities. But since we are not created but the product of mere time and chance, we are not even creatures but rather objects. There is no mystery of existence; rather, it is a tragedy, or a farce.

I realize that it is with a very aggressive tone that I make these assertions, but that is not because I am so certain of my own position. Quite the opposite. I admit it's plausible, when we look at the world from a human point of view, that we are an accidental blip of consciousness in an otherwise dead universe. For me, it is more the heart than the head which rails against such conclusions. And although the heart is quite easily intimidated by the head, I think one sees more clearly through it than through any power of reason.

My biggest problem with "eliminative materialism"

In college I took a course on the philosophy of mind according to Paul and Patricia Churchland. We got to meet Paul at the end of the course, which is a story I could tell another day. I was simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the Churchlands' idea of mind. They go even further than other materialists in insisting that the mind really is the brain and nothing else. See, you can be a materialist and still hold to some functionalist perspective in which the brain "gives raise" to certain traits, and those traits can be said to be "mind." The Churchlands throw even that out. That's why they call it "eliminative" materialism.

I was reminded of this as I read through a recent article on why we can't solve the "Hard Problem." For some reason, not even David Chalmers can convince the Churchlands (or Daniel Dennett, who, I believe, really is a zombie) that it really is a problem. Instead, they (or at least Patricia) keep coming back to this line of argument:

“The history of science is full of cases where people thought a phenomenon wasutterly unique, that there couldn’t be any possible mechanism for it, that we mightnever solve it, that there was nothing in the universe like it,” said Patricia Churchland of the University of California, a self-described “neurophilosopher” and one of Chalmers’s most forthright critics. Churchland’s opinion of the Hard Problem, which she expresses in caustic vocal italics, is that it is nonsense, kept alive by philosophers who fear that science might be about to eliminate one of the puzzles that has kept them gainfully employed for years. Look at the precedents: in the 17th century, scholars were convinced that light couldn’t possibly be physical – that it had to be something occult, beyond the usual laws of nature. Or take life itself: early scientists were convinced that there had to be some magical spirit – the élan vital – that distinguished living beings from mere machines. But there wasn’t, of course. Light is electromagnetic radiation; life is just the label we give to certain kinds of objects that can grow and reproduce. Eventually, neuroscience will show that consciousness is just brain states. Churchland said: “The history of science really gives you perspective on how easy it is to talk ourselves into this sort of thinking – that if my big, wonderful brain can’t envisage the solution, then it must be a really, really hard problem!”

Consciousness is not like light. Light is something we observe, consciousness is that by which we observe. If we can be said to "observe" consciousness, that really means consciousness observing itself, already a weird sort of self-referential loop. The mysteries compound themselves when we try to figure out exactly how that might be taking place in a network of neurons. But, unless you really are a robot, you can't just pretend that this "phenomenon" (if it can really even be called that) doesn't exist.

Yet all of that isn't actually what bugs me the most, because it gets very confusing to narrow in on exactly what we're targeting philosophically. What boggles my mind is that the Churchlands actually seem to believe that our language should change to reflect a more scientifically accurate view of the brain. I remember Paul giving a talk to our class in which he described how his grandmother used to cheer him up when he was feeling down, using terminology completely alien to normal speech--hormonal imbalances repaired, neuronal excitation, things with which I myself am too unfamiliar to reproduce any specifics. That approach, I think, is silly on even the most basic level.

We all know the earth isn't flat, that the sun doesn't go up in the morning and down in the evening. But if I ask you what time is the sunrise tomorrow morning, it would be in completely bad faith for you to reply, "You know the sun doesn't actually rise, don't you?" No matter how far we progress in cosmology, we will always (as long as we live here on Earth) use the terms "sunrise" and "sunset." That's because, whatever the "real explanation" might be, these things happen, every day. Indeed, they give meaning the word "day."

Consciousness is similar to sunrise and sunset. We cannot avoid talking about it. If I want to do something, there is no other useful way to communicate that other than by using just those words. If I think something is true, it will never be unreasonable for me to say, "I believe that..." It would only obscure everything for me to start babbling on about activation patterns across neural networks. Not only that, but the language of consciousness--thought, feeling, intention, and so on--is what gives meaning to the very concept of "I." The boundaries of a day are sunrise and sunset. So in some sense thoughts, feelings, beliefs and desires are the boundaries of a particular person.

If science has taught us anything about what a day really is, it has done nothing to change our relationship to it (except through technology, such as the modern invention of clocks, which have nothing to do with whether the earth is flat or goes around the sun). It is still an ever-present reality. Similarly, I don't think consciousness will ever cease to be the thing of which we are most aware in ourselves, and for that reason the most mysterious thing which could possibly exist.

I think there are good reasons to entertain speculation about the "panpsychism" proposed by David Chalmers and others, but that will have to wait until another day.

To finish, I also wanted to comment on something that never ceases to amaze me in the debate about science in philosophy. Do you notice that line in the quote above--"Light is electromagnetic radition"? And this is supposed to be an explanation of why it isn't supernatural! I have the impression that many people would like to make everything which "science" has explained into something ordinary. Oh, how mundane, this wave-particle governed by Maxwell's equations! And we thought it was all so very mysterious before!

I once heard a scientist claim that Einstein should not have been so very surprised when he said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." Why, if humans evolved in this world, it should not be surprising that our minds our adapted to understand it! This is the level at which some scientists understand the world they live in. Everything is trivial, perhaps tautological. After all, everything that exists, well, exists! So it should not be surprising, really, that it exists. Such is the wholly undeveloped "cosmic religious sense," as Einstein called it, of far too many "intellectuals" of our day. It is no wonder that something like New Atheism can thrive in such a world. Science has become a matter of winning the argument for its own sake, detached from any sense of reverence. It is no wonder, really, that there should be philosophers who wish to eliminate entirely the concept of a soul.

I'm alive

The title of this post has a double meaning.

On the one hand, it's simply been far too long since I wrote here. I feel terribly guilty about this, but the guilt only pushes me further away from writing again. Starting a new job, moving to a new place, worrying about finding a next job (I am still just a lowly post-doc)--all of this has kept me away from my personal blog. There is another factor involved, on the level of ideas: I have needed the time to think about things differently. At times I have wondered whether I wouldn't simply take this whole blog down and start over (or never blog again). My ideas have shifted quite a bit over time, and my reasons for blogging today have very little to do with why I started.

On the other hand, the title of this post shows what I've been thinking about most recently (outside of my professional life, that is). Consciousness, or mind, was the philosophical problem that fascinated me most when I was in college, and as I continue to sift through the intellectual debate that manages to make it to such channels as Ted Talks and Youtube videos, I am led to think that we as a species have made little to no progress on this question.

Modern thinkers would love to have a complete theoretical account of experience, including consciousness. I am inclined to think this is fundamentally impossible. Consciousness is paradoxically reducible and irreducible. By reducible, I mean we seem to be able to explain it in terms of smaller pieces--namely, the neurons which make up the brain. By irreducible, I mean simply that consciousness is the point of access to the whole world. Imagining that my consciousness didn't exist is not simply like imagining that the computer in front of me didn't exist; it's really to imagine that nothing exists.

If the concept of consciousness necessarily contains the idea of self-awareness, then mind need not. The point really isn't whether I'm aware of me, the individual, but whether I'm aware of anything at all. Mind is not that thing which allows me to say, "I exist," but rather that which allows me to confront the fact that something exists. In fact, being self-aware is in some sense a way of diminishing the significance of mind. I realize that the world could go on existing without me, and so it does not seem so dramatic to think that one day all the lights could go out. I am led to believe that when I contemplate mortality, it is only my own mortality, and not the end of the world. Yet that belief, ironically the result of self-awareness, requires a leap of faith in the external world. It is a leap everyone seems to make without thinking, which, I suppose, is to our advantage.

Solipsism, after all, is really not the belief that I am the only conscious being. It is, rather, the annihilation of the concept of I, and indeed of consciousness. It is the most literal possible reading of the external world. Things exist, they have colors and shapes and smells and tastes, they make sounds, they cause feelings. There are also thoughts, images that don't always correspond to light, sounds that don't always correspond to vibrations, feelings that don't always correspond to motion. If ever all the lights go out, and all these smells and tastes and sounds and feelings go away--then nothing will exist. There is no person "out there" to carry on "experiencing" anything.

No one seems to think this. They think of themselves as part of a larger whole. Each of us differentiates "I" from all the rest. It is the most natural act of faith. It allows genuine relationship, the encounter of the other. No amount of bizarre speculation should ever make us want to shrink from that.

Yet if we reflect for a moment on the true nature of solipsism, and then again on the leap of faith we make to avoid it, we might see what an overwhelming and miraculous thing it is for two persons to interact. It is not simply the meeting of two objects in space. It is the meeting of two universes. For if I erase the concept of I, then there really is only one world; yet if I become aware of another who might also do the same, erasing their own concept of I, I see that there are actually two worlds, which then intersect through the exchange of thoughts and feelings. In which case I then must recover my concept of I, because I realize that the "world" as I experience it is only my own, and there are others which may change it or be changed by it.

This is the nature of mind. I still haven't explained why I think we will never have a comprehensive view of mind together with the rest of the world, but I think this is a start.

Another Invisible Hand...

Lakoff and Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh opens with a couple of chapters pummeling the traditional philosophical notion that pure conscious reflection is the way to discovering truth, particularly epistemological truth. In Chapter 2, on "The Cognitive Unconscious," they write (with some emphasis added),

Conscious thought is the tip of an enormous iceberg. It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought--and that may be a serious underestimate. Moreover, the 95 percent below the surface of conscious awareness shapes and structures all conscious thought. If the cognitive unconscious were not there doing this shaping, there could be no conscious thought.

...

Our unconscious conceptual system functions like a "hidden hand" that shapes how we conceptualize all aspects of our experience. This hidden hand gives form to the metaphysics that is built into our ordinary conceptual systems. It creates the entities that inhabit the cognitive unconscious--abstract entitites like friendships, bargains, failures, and lies--that we use in ordinary unconscious reasoning. It thus shapes how we automatically and unconsciously comprehend what we experience. It constitutes our unreflective common sense.

The more we learn about the world, the more we realize how little we consciously control--even in ourselves.