Philosophical Theories of Consciousness - Part I

What is the Problem of Consciousness?

  > The background
  > Naturalization
  > Subjectivity
  > "Qualia"

The Background

  > The Scientific View of the World
      > The world "governed" by "law"
      > The world constucted from ultimate "parts"
  > Physics as a "total theory"
      > Causal closure
      > Part-whole reductionism
      > "Physical Resolution"
      > Physical supervenience and dependence

Naturalization

  > Old Fashioned Inter-Theoretic Reductionism
> Fodorian Explicative Naturalization
      > "The Rules":
           > X is naturalized iff (1) X is explicable in
           terms of Y, (2) Y does not depend on X,
           (3) Y can be naturalized by the Rules.
> "Explication" is weaker than reduction.
> Supervenience is not sufficient.

Subjectivity

  > For each consciousness, there is a what it is like to be that consciousness.
  > This subjective character of experience is not accessible to objective inquiry.
  > Subjective character seems arbitrarily linked to possible physical underpinnings or correlates.

Qualia

  > Qualia include such things as the
           way strawberries taste
     or the
          way a trumpet sounds
     considered as aspects of consciousness.
  > Qualia are problematic features of experience.
  > Qualia are, so to speak, the "material" of subjectivity.
  > Qualia are all of
      > Intrinsic
      > Ineffable
      > Immediate
      > Private

Some Classic Arguments

  > Leibniz's mill (1714)
  > Nagel's bat
  > Block's absent qualia and bizarre realizations
  > Searle's Chinese Room
  > Jackson's neuroscientific Mary

Invisible Subjectivity (Leibniz)

  " ... if we imagine that there is a machine whose
 structure makes it think, sense and have
 perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged ... so
 that we could enter it as one enters a mill.

   Assuming that ... we will only find parts that push
 one another, and we will never find anything to
 explain a perception"

                                                 Monadology, section 17

What is it like to be a bat?

  > There is a "way it is like" to be a bat.
  > This is a subjective fact about the bat's state of consciousness.
  > The objective facts about the bat do not reveal the subjective facts.
  > Thus science, being limited to objective facts, cannot explain consciousness.

Absent Qualia

  > A (very large) group of people could "realize"
        the relational properties and physical causal powers of
        whatever is taken to be the objective basis of consciousness.
> This group could then realize the objective basis
        of an excruciating toothache.
> But none of the group would feel pain.
> It seems doubtful there would be any pain.

The Chinese Room Thought Experiment

  > A computer simulation of the cognitive ability to
        understand Chinese could be "hand simulated"
        by a human being.
  > The human simulator would not thereby come to
        understand Chinese.
  > It seems doubtful there is any understanding.

Phenomenal Information

  > Mary has never experienced color.
  > But she knows all the physical facts about color experience.
  > When she finally does experience color, she will
        come to know something she did not know before.
  > So there are facts (knowables) in addition to the physical facts.

Quick Replies

  > Leibniz, Nagel and Jackson confuse mere epistemic
        inaccessibility with ontological difference.
  > Block and Searle confuse commonsense intuition
        with scientific truth.

To Part II