ID No.: 2003HZ67002
NAME OF THE STUDENT: BHAUSAHEB R. BIRADAR
DISSERTATION TITLE: The ‘Hard Problem’ And Some Directionalities Toward Disentangling It
ABSTRACT
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” –Wernher Von Braun
When I commenced grappling with the Hard problem, I had not stipulated any plan anent what shape it was going to take or what aspect of this overarching problem I was going to embark on. As a natural upshot of this initial days were spent groping in the dark in the so far uncharted terrains and aisles of this field and the work was held in abeyance. Quite an amount of days were spent just groping in the dark, wobbling somewhere off in the space. grappling with every thought, not knowing where it was leading.
This did help in certain ways, although every bit of cogitation appeared as evanescent and tantalizing as the problem itself. For instance, it helped to come out with the idea of JUST CONSCIOUSNESS.
The conceptual advancement in the philosophy of mind in the last couple of centuries has been remarkably mammoth and no less dramatic. One is taken aback, however, by the sheer fact that the students of this field are still struggling to disentangle the problem and give a rigorous definition to it. No one can refuse his assent or grudge when it comes to acknowledging the mammoth and unprecedented conceptual advancement that has taken place in the past few decades. Science has brought a myriad clarification and helped philosophers to refine, revive, and readdress some of the problems; and philosophy has equally well complemented the scientific pursuit. One is supremely astonished, then, to see that the mind/body problem-the problem that forms the heart and soul of philosophy of mind and several scientific fields (artificial intelligence, mind-body medicine, etc.) is still in its obscure and abstruse attire as it was few centuries ago, and not an iota of progress has been made toward disentangling it. Is it because of our own cognitive frailties (as McGinn would emphatically promulgate), or it solely because of the enigmatic and tantalizing nature of the problem itself? It seems that this precarious situation is an upshot of both the nature of the problem as well as our own prejudices. One might as well argue that there are myriad schools of thoughts, theoretical frameworks, and opinions around on the issue of consciousness. However, they don’t take us very far and might not be anything more than opinions. Thus, the “International Dictionary of Psychology” while defining consciousness says:
“The having of perceptions, feelings, and awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of confusing consciousness with self-consciousness to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it.” (Emphasis mine).
Thus, due to a flurry of various confusing and unedifying conceptions and theories of consciousness and regarding some questions as the chief question of consciousness has drawn us in a pool of anomalies.
David Chalmers has attempted to dole us out of this frailty that this pursuit has been laden with and has classified the problems of mind into two parts: the Easy problems and the Hard problem. Whereas the Easy problems are anent giving a complete account of such aspects of human mind as reportability, attention, learning, etc., the Hard problem is essentially about the experiential aspects the cardinal issue that makes the Mind/Body problem (the problem of consciousness) agonizingly monolithic.
It is true, and Chalmers does admit it, that the Hard problem has been time-honored and putting the philosophical and scientific literature of mind under microscope should corroborate the fact that the Hard problem under variegated guises has always been lingering in the minds of the students of philosophy of mind. But we ought to give due credit to Chalmers for elegantly venting the problem and for the ensuing attention of the researchers toward this classification between the Easy and the Hard aspect of it. The issue of subject mental feelings (marvelously put by Nagel as what is it like to be that organism) is so much tantalizing and difficult to get to grips with that a researcher either shows a stout proclivity (although now it is dwindling) for gingerly brushing aside and tagging it as an irrelevant problem for the natural sciences, or he will prefer taking a categorical stance of acquiescing to the refulgence of the terrains of science and end up subscribing to physicalism.
It is, as Chalmers rightly points out, a hard fact that there are not many who are truly ebullient to scramble with the Hard problem. But there is no question that his paper has created enough turbulence and anxiety in the researchers’ minds, and it is my stout conviction that in due course of time researchers will frantically shift their attention to the Hard problem.
There is a plethora of intriguing questions that the Consciousness Studies field is laden with. For instance, the what, when, how, where, an why questions of consciousness. I subscribe to the point that there is only one Mind/Body problem. Until few years ago there was hardly any consensus on what can be regarded as the problem of consciousness. While grappling with these phenomena everyone started with a particular set of assumptions and a particular set of convictions as regards the problems of consciousness (and which essentially bases on their conception of consciousness), and as an inevitable upshot of this attitude we see that there are a myriad so called theories and solutions to the problem of consciousness. This is an utter balderdash. The first chapter engages the issue of why there is only one problem of consciousness and what that problem is.
The second chapter engages two important issues, namely the issues of legitimacy, and the importance of the problem of consciousness. It is not only instructional but absolutely mandatory for a researcher in any field of research to establish comprehensively the legitimacy of a problem at the outset, before he commences embarking on the whole enterprise. It helps in several important ways. It not only helps disentangle the problem by removing the veils of obscurity that might be surrounding it, but also saves time and effort that goes into grappling with it. Why the issue of legitimacy of a problem and how to constitute the legitimacy of the problem (of consciousness) forms the major part of the second chapter.
The second part of the chapter is suggestive and will focus on the importance of this problem. It is argued that the problem of consciousness has the maximum bearing on some fundamental problems about man’s life and existence. It is suggested that this problem is the profoundest of all the problems man has been scrambling with, and therefore its solution will have a stout bearing on understanding man and his place in this universe. One important part of this chapter is an issue taken with eliminativism which is furthered in the third chapter.
The third chapter is among the most important ones. In this chapter I delineate the framework of what I would like to call just consciousness.
THE FRAMEWORK OF JUST CONSCIOUSNESS HAS THREE PARTS:
- Clarifications on the issue of subjectivity
- Bolstering consciousness realism, and
- the crux of just consciousness
The first two points form the groundwork for establishing the idea of just consciousness. At the outset is discussed the intriguing issue of subjectivity. Baars’ view on subjectivity stands at variance with that of Nagel’s. I try to argue that we must be subscribing to Nagel’s view on what subjectivity must mean to us. Baars tends to equate subjectivity with self-awareness (or the observing self). What he turns a blind eye to is that even the state of self-awareness has got two aspects to it.
(Self-Awareness) = (the information processing) + (the qualitative feeling of being self-aware)
In the second part of the chapter an attempt is made to take issue with Dennett’s attempt to deny that qualia exist. Here I propose some more properties of qualia in addition to Dennett’s properties of them. I classify between Strong quale and Weak quale and argue that Dennett is talking about Strong quale. It is further proposed that Weak part of a quale may not have any kind of behavioral disposition to it, although there might be something it is like to be in that state. It is also argued that a single event of experience has more than one level of quale associated with it. The third part of the chapter forms the crux of the framework of just consciousness. I argue that what we must be studying, or the conception of consciousness we must be having at the outset of embarking on this issue should be in accordance with the idea of just consciousness; else, no matter how rigorously we study conscious experiences it will hardly tell us anything about consciousness qua consciousness. I argue that JC (just consciousness) is devoid of any referentiality, which means that consciousness is never ‘of anything. JC is not qualia or experiences (conscious or unconscious) of a system; it is different from them.
I give an analogy of colorless water acquiring various different colors, to make the issue of JC clear. One of the interesting ideas proposed is JC being supervenient not only on the physical (brain) processes but also the mental phenomena. Further, it is said that whether or not consciousness can be studied by taking a first-person stance depends on the fate of JC.
Further the issue of neural correlates of consciousness and how far they can take us in the pursuit of JC is discussed.
The fourth chapter is about the snail experiment. The issue of whether animals possess consciousness forms one of the important aspects of the overarching issue of human consciousness. And literature abounds with diverse views on the issue. Learning forms a very important area of the issue of animal consciousness. The occurrence of learning in organisms is seen as a mark of the powers of ratiocination and intelligence, although rudimentary. It is fairly well known that animals such as chimpanzees, dogs, elephants, monkeys, etc. can be trained for certain behaviors and therefore that they have the learning capacities. Whether this happens in still lower strata of animals is a highly moot point. Keeping this in mind, a study was designed to study (and corroborate) the presence of learning in lower animals. The animal selected was a snail. The experiment is time-consuming and still in progress. What is delineated here is the first phase of the experiment. The Center where this experiment is being carried out is the Center for Brain Research and Cognitive Sciences attached to the Sophia College, Mumbai. From the Olfactory Response Indices, it can be concluded that the animal was able to associate bitter taste with sweet smell. This suggests that the animal was able to change its behavior on the basis of new experience. In other words, associative learning is present in snails, or snails are able to learn and change their behavior from new experience.
Fifth chapter is a compendium of various approaches to the Hard problem. There are as many approaches to the Hard problem as there are conceptions of consciousness. As was noted in the third chapter, the theoretical framework that a researcher comes out with is very much an upshot of the conception of consciousness that he subscribes to at the outset of his pursuit.
This chapter engages some of the interesting approaches. An issue is taken with McGinn’s approach which I find totally unacceptable.
Sixth chapter is about the Frog Heart Experiment’. What is the function of consciousness? Is the physical world causally closed? Does consciousness play any kind of causal role that may/may not be implicated in the survival nature of the organism? These are some of the most crucial questions about consciousness, aside from those of its ontological nature, how much importance it bears on the issue of life for humankind, and its origin. Dr. Gomatam (personal discussions) holds that there could be some objective properties in a system that is inherently conscious, and which are there in that system due solely to the presence of consciousness. This idea was extrapolated a bit. It is proposed that Biofield, which is supposed to exist in a close proximity of an inherently conscious system, is one such property. The ‘Frog Experiment’ was an attempt to corroborate the existence of Biofield. What was studied in this experiment was the synchronization of heart beats in dissected frog hearts. Some amazing results are found. Keeping in mind the importance and bearing the issue of biofield has for the problem of consciousness, it is very important that further studies on the amazing phenomenon of synchronization be pursued immediately. Also engaged in this chapter is the idea of how experience can be relational.
Last chapter engages Chalmers’ approach toward the issue of consciousness. His suggestion of the principle of organizational invariance is discussed along with other points of his. He talks about two concepts of mind: psychological mind and phenomenal mind. One interesting point he makes is about what he calls the first, second, and third order phenomenal judgments. His idea of naturalistic dualism is also discussed.
