Here are two claims:
- That while neuroscientists are getting closer to finding the neural correlates for consciousness (NCC) this will not solve the Hard Problem (s). But:
- That is the fault of the Hard Problem, not the neuroscientists.
And briefly:
3. A way forward.
What are the NCCs?
No one really knows, but they are getting close, for example:
(And a BIG THANKYOU to David Pearce for bringing the link to my attention!!)
Whether this particular work finds NCCs or not, the fact is that many people are working on it and sooner rather than later they will find them.
What is the Hard Problem?
Essentially it is the statement that even when the NCCs are found, this event in itself will not be able to solve such problems as why or how is it that these physical or electric entities seem to transform themselves into the apparently individually unified consciousnesses we all experience.
So,
1. The discovery of NCCs will not solve the Hard Problem:
I have no idea how the engine in my car works, but I know that it does. In theory, someone could explain to me all the different parts of the engine and how they interact to make the car brrmm. But no matter how intricate my knowledge of my car and its constitutive parts becomes, it will get me nowhere near being able to describe what it is like to drive at 150km /h along a dirt track behind Mt. Macedon. No matter how detailed the description of the constitutive parts of my car, the description will not define 'car' in its broadest experiential sense. I am not going to get into a solipsistic Cartesian argument about who is driving the driver of the car, because I don't need to for the point to stand. Whatever the descriptions of the physical workings of my brain, those descriptions will not in themselves describe, let alone define, what it is to have (or do) consciousness.
But this is not at all meant to belittle the search for NCCs. It is important that we find out. It is perhaps the most we can ever do.
2. It's the Hard Problem's fault anyway.
The Hard Problem and its related mysteries are like a retreating mist. Once an answer is found to a question, the Hard Problem ideologues will always be able to draw back further and merely say the answer does not resolve some deeper issue about what it is like to be the consciousness looking at the answer. This is akin to religion's retreat before science. Whereas hundreds of years ago the religious consensus may have been that there really is a physical heaven with angels actually located in the sky, or that a really existent God physically shook the earth to make earthquakes, as science advances so religion retreats into more and more esoteric explanations of what religion itself stands for. Now, I have even heard it posited by the religious that religious entities are themselves constituent of 'those things that can not be answered'. This is beautiful in its impermeability. That is, whatever science discovers, God is that thing that exists further than science's reach. This position would set religion up forever, since there will always be something beyond what science knows. The problem is it fails the falsifiability criteria, the greatness is that it does so deliberately, it indeed defines itself and will go on defining itself as that which does not contain falsifiability. But it still has a popular pull, in that even if we now know that earthquakes are caused by shifting tectonic plates, the religious can simply claim God makes the plates move. Once science established that the interaction of gravity and the earth's core make tectonic plates move, the religious can simply say that God makes the gravity etc, this can go on forever.
The Hard Problem does the same thing. Firstly, in clumsy hands, it can always descend in to the recursive Cartesian spiral alluded to above. That is, what's inside the head of whatever it is inside the head of .....on and on and on. But that is a little simple these days. Secondly, it can do the same thing in disguise. That is, whatever 'explanation' 'science' attempts at defining or describing consciousness it can merely remove itself from the scene, ducking into another room with a plaintive 'But now where am I?' or, 'But what is the meaning of love?'
This is because the tautology of scientific explanations does not fit into realms which define themselves essentially as being non-tautological. We will never come to a conclusion that consciousness = x in the same way as we might say 1 + 1 = 2 (which is a tautological truth). And we will never come to that conclusion because for some consciousness (as religion mentioned above) will always be defined as 'whatever it is that is not reducible to '= x'.
But this is not the fault of the neuroscientists. As Dennett has said regarding magic, people tend to think there is real magic and then there is trickery. And when you explain to someone the mechanics behind a piece of 'magic', they often simply say that right, now you have explained a piece of trickery and you are no closer to showing the mechanics of 'real' magic. Of course, the rub is there is no such thing as 'real magic', only well delivered trickery. The more you explain, the more the required definition recedes.
In the same way, no matter how detailed the description of NCCs, for many they will never be able to 'explain' consciousness because consciousness (like magic) is always defined as that which eludes explanation.
3. The way forward.
Just as in the car example, perhaps we are expecting too much from the mechanics. If I were to seek to more effectively define my car in its wider social or experiential sense I would immediately need to look not at the engine but at the environment in which the car operates. I drive it mostly on roads. It is a social signifier of my family-style life. It is a pretty smooth ride. For most people, in most situations, the 'definition' of their car has nothing to do with the engine or its parts. The 'car' is embedded in a much more complex series of social nuances. And essentially these definitions have virtually nothing to do with what kind of spark plugs are in the car. I would argue that in nearly every case (except when the car breaks down) the most effective and widely used definition for car is not going to be found in the car's parts themselves, but in this wider net of images and considerations about the car.
The problem is some Hard Problem ideologues wish to still locate the Hard Problem in the singularity of an individual's conscious experience (the car itself), while at the same time denying the neuroscientists (mechanics) the ability to define within those parameters. If you restrict the derivation of meaningful statements about consciousness to the individual experience of that consciousness, it is like you are requiring the mechanic to define car somewhere in the engine while at the same time denying that the meaning of car will be located in the engine. You are asking the mechanic to tell you how the spark plugs made it possible for you pull chicks on Lygon St. The mechanic will probably come up with a whole series of causal relations between the kind of spark plugs and the engine and the style of car, but he will never explain the leap between the car and the friendly smile by recourse to the engine alone.
Perhaps we would find more viable explanations for consciousness by decoupling the idea of consciousness from the individual experience of consciousness.
For more information:
For Dennett see:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOxqM21qBzw
This guy does a lot of interesting stuff at Monash:
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