[maverickphilosopher] William F. Vallicella: Bull Meets Shovel: Could Consciousness Be A Conjuring Trick?

[maverickphilosopher at lists.powerblogs.com]

Posted by William F. Vallicella:
Bull Meets Shovel:  Could Consciousness Be A Conjuring Trick?
http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1126817742.shtml


   Thanks to [1]Steve Thomas for directing me to the following [2]load of
   bullshit, if I may be permitted a technical expression lately
   introduced by Professor Frankfurt. 'Bullshit,' like 'being,' is said
   in many ways (to de on legetai men pollachos -- Aristotle, Metaphysics
   Bk IV); I will indicate at the end how I am using the term.

   ([3]show)

   The following statement by [4]Nicholas Humphrey (Psychology, London
   School of Economics) is one among many answers to a question posed
   [5]here. The question is: What do you believe is true though you
   cannot prove it?

     I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed
     to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable
     mystery. Who is the conjuror and why is s/he doing it? The conjuror
     is natural selection, and the purpose has been to bolster human
     self-confidence and self-importance=E2so as to increase the value we
     each place on our own and others' lives.

     If this is right, it provides a simple explanation for why we, as
     scientists or laymen, find the "hard problem" of consciousness just
     so hard. Nature has meant it to be hard. Indeed "mysterian"
     philosophers=E2from Colin McGinn to the Pope=E2who bow down before the
     apparent miracle and declare that it's impossible in principle to
     understand how consciousness could arise in a material brain, are
     responding exactly as Nature hoped they would, with shock and awe.

     Can I prove it? It's difficult to prove any adaptationist account
     of why humans experience things the way they do. But here there is
     an added catch. The Catch-22 is that, just to the extent that
     Nature has succeeded in putting consciousness beyond the reach of
     rational explanation, she must have undermined the very possibility
     of showing that this is what she's done.

     But nothing's perfect. There may be a loophole. While it may
     seem=E2and even be=E2impossible for us to explain how a brain process
     could have the quality of consciousness, it may not be at all
     impossible to explain how a brain process could (be designed to)
     give rise to the impression of having this quality. (Consider: we
     could never explain why 2 + 2 =3D 5, but we might relatively easily
     be able to explain why someone should be under the illusion that 2
     + 2 =3D 5).

     Do I want to prove it? That's a difficult one. If the belief that
     consciousness is a mystery is a source of human hope, there may be
     a real danger that exposing the trick could send us all to hell.

   David Chalmers formulates the 'hard problem' as follows: "Why is all
   this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?" (The
   Conscious Mind, Oxford 1996, p. xii.) Essentially, the 'hard problem'
   is the qualia problem. To explain it in detail would require a
   separate post. Now Humphrey offers us an explanation of why the 'hard
   problem' is hard. It is hard because nature or natural selection -- H.
   uses these terms interchangeably above -- meant it to be hard. Her
   purpose is to "fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an
   inexplicable mystery." She wants to fool us in order to "bolster human
   self-confidence and self-importance." How thoughtful of her. Of
   course, to say that she is fooling us implies that consciousness is
   not mysterious but just another natural occurrence.

   Not only does Nature fool us into thinking that consciousness is
   mysterious, when it is not, she also makes it impossible for us to see
   that this is what she has done. But there may be a loophole: it may be
   possible to "explain how a brain process could be (designed to) give
   rise to the impression of having this quality," i.e., the quality of
   consciousness. By 'impression,' H. means illusion as is clear from his
   arithmetical example. So what H. is suggesting is that it may be
   possible to explain how brain processes could give rise to the
   illusion that there is consciousness, the illusion that brain
   processes have the quality of consciousness.

   But this 'possibility' is a complete absurdity, a complete
   impossibility. For it is self-evident that illusions presuppose
   consciousness: an illusion cannot exist without consciousness. The
   'cannot' expresses a very strong impossibility, broadly logical
   impossibility. The Germans have a nice proverb, Soviel Schein, so viel
   Sein. You can't have Schein without Sein, seeming without being.

   The water spied by a parched hiker might be an illusion (a mirage),
   but it is impossible that consciousness be an illusion. For wherever
   there is illusion there is consciousness, and indeed the reality of
   consciousness, not the illusion of consciousness. If you said that the
   illusion of consciousness is an illusion for a consciousness that is
   itself an illusion you would be embarked upon a regress that was both
   infinite and vicious.

   In the case of the mirage one can and must distinguish between the
   seeming and the being. The being (reality) of the mirage consists of
   heat waves rising from the desert floor, whereas its seeming
   (appearance) involves a relation to a conscious being who mis-takes
   the heat waves for water. But conscious states, as Searle and I have
   been saying ad nauseam, are such that seeming and being, appearance
   and reality, coincide. For conscious qualia, esse est percipi.
   Consciousness cannot be an illusion since no sort of wedge can be
   driven between its appearance and its reality.

   A French philosopher might say that consciousness 'recuperates itself'
   from every attempt to reduce it to the status of an illusion. The
   French philosopher would be right -- if interpreted in my more sober
   Anglospheric terms.

   It is also important to note how H. freely helps himself to
   intentional and teleological language, all the while personifying
   Nature with a capital 'N.' Nature meant the hard problem to be hard,
   she had a purpose in fooling us. She fooled us. Etc. This is a typical
   mistake that many naturalists make. They presuppose the validity of
   the very categories (intentionality, etc.) that their naturalistic
   schemes would eliminate.

   There is no problem with using teleological talk as a sort of
   shorthand, but eventually it has to be cashed out: it has to be
   translated into 'mechanistic' talk. They owe us a translation manual
   as I quoted David Stove as saying [6]here. In the absence of a
   translation manual, they can be charged with presupposing what they
   are trying to account for, and what is worse, ascribing meanings and
   purposes to something that could not possibly have them, namely,
   Natural Selection personified. What is the point of getting rid of God
   if you end up importing purposes into Natural Selectionp ersonified,
   or what is worse, into 'selfish' genes?

   So Humphrey's statement is bullshit in the sense of being radically
   incoherent. It is pseudo-theory in the worst sense. One of the tasks
   of philosophers is to expose such pseudo-theory which, hiding behind
   scientific jargon (e.g, 'natural selection'), pretends to be
   scientific when it is only confused.
   ([7]hide)

References

   1. http://www.imago-dei.net/imago_dei/
   2. http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_easyprint.html#humphrey
   3. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/maverickphilosopher/posts/1126817=
742.html
   4. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/humphrey.html
   5. http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_easyprint.html#participants
   6. http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1126324101.shtml
   7. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/maverickphilosopher/posts/1126817=
742.html