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How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains? by Velmans, Max (2002) Paperback
In daily life we take it for granted that our minds have conscious control of our actions, at least for most of the time. But many scientists and philosophers deny that this is really the case, because there is no generally accepted theory of how the mind interacts with the body. Max Velmans presents a non-reductive solution to the problem, in which 'conscious mental control' includes ‘voluntary’ operations of the preconscious mind. On this account, biological determinism is compatible with experienced free will. Velmans’ theory is put to the test by nine Ron Chrisley, Todd Feinberg, Jeffrey Gray, John Kihlstrom, Sam Rakover, Ramakrishna Rao, Aaron Sloman, Steve Torrance and Robert Van Gulick.
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First published November 26, 2002
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August 22, 2024A PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR PROPOSES A "DIFFERENT WAY" OF UNDERSTANDING CONSCIOUSNESS
Max Velmans (born 1942) is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is co-founder and was chair of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. He has also written 'Understanding Consciousness' and 'The Science of Consciousness.'
He wrote in the Abstract of this 2002 paper, "there is no accepted theory of mind/body interaction and this has had a detrimental effect on the acceptance of mental causation in science, philosophy and in many areas of clinical practice... non-reductionist accounts have to cope with three problems: (1) The physical world appears causally closed, which would seem to leave no room for conscious intervention. (2) One is not conscious of one's own brain/body processing, so how could there be conscious control of such processing? (3) Conscious experiences appear to come too late to causally affect the processes to which they most obviously relate. This paper suggests a way of understanding mental causation that resolves these problems. It also suggests that 'conscious mental control' needs to be partly understood in terms of the voluntary operations of the preconscious mind, and that this allows an account of biological determinism that is compatible with experienced free will." (Pg. 3)
He wonders, "So WHO'S in control? Who chooses, has thoughts, generates images and so on? We habitually think of ourselves as being our conscious selves. But ... the different facets of our experienced, conscious selves are generated by and represent aspects of our own preconscious minds. That is, we are BOTH the pre-conscious generating processes AND the conscious results. Viewed from a third-person perspective our own preconscious mental processes look like neurochemical and associated physical activities in our brains. Viewed introspectively... our preconscious mind seems like a personal but 'empty space' from which thoughts, images and feelings spontaneously arise. WE are as much one thing as the other---and this requires a shift in our second 'centre of gravity' to one where our consciously experienced self becomes just the visible 'tip' of our own embedding, preconscious mind." (Pg. 20)
Commentator Jeffrey Gray observes, "In essence, the Hard Problem [of consciousness] can be stripped down to just two questions: how does the brain create qualia; and how does the brin inspect them?... Velmans' proposed solution... is a version of the dual aspect theory. First-person and third-person accounts of what goes on in John's consciousness/John's brain are both correct. They deal with exactly the same information, but observed from different perspectives. Hey, presto, Houdini is out of the box!... it is time for the problem finally to come out of the philosophical closet. Conscious experience is part of the natural world. Therefore, the only satisfying explanation will be one that shows how consciousness is linked to the scientific account that applies to the rest of that world." (Pg. 49)
But in the Abstract of his concluding article, Velmans states, "My target article... presents evidence for causal interactions between consciousness and brain and some standard ways of accounting for this evidence... I also point out some of the problems of understanding such causal interactions that are not addressed by standard explanations. Most of the residual problems have to do with how to cross the 'explanatory gap' from consciousness to brain. I then list some of the reasons why the route across this gap suggested by physicalism won't work, in spite of its current popularity in consciousness studies. MY own suggested route is ... where consciousness and brain can be seen to be dual aspects of a unifying, psychophysical mind... there are no gaps that cannot be filled---just a different way of understanding consciousness, mind, brain and their causal interaction, with some interesting consequences for our understanding of free will." (Pg. 69)
This collection of articles---but more particularly, his books---will be of great interest to any serious students of the philosophy of mind.
Max Velmans (born 1942) is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is co-founder and was chair of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. He has also written 'Understanding Consciousness' and 'The Science of Consciousness.'
He wrote in the Abstract of this 2002 paper, "there is no accepted theory of mind/body interaction and this has had a detrimental effect on the acceptance of mental causation in science, philosophy and in many areas of clinical practice... non-reductionist accounts have to cope with three problems: (1) The physical world appears causally closed, which would seem to leave no room for conscious intervention. (2) One is not conscious of one's own brain/body processing, so how could there be conscious control of such processing? (3) Conscious experiences appear to come too late to causally affect the processes to which they most obviously relate. This paper suggests a way of understanding mental causation that resolves these problems. It also suggests that 'conscious mental control' needs to be partly understood in terms of the voluntary operations of the preconscious mind, and that this allows an account of biological determinism that is compatible with experienced free will." (Pg. 3)
He wonders, "So WHO'S in control? Who chooses, has thoughts, generates images and so on? We habitually think of ourselves as being our conscious selves. But ... the different facets of our experienced, conscious selves are generated by and represent aspects of our own preconscious minds. That is, we are BOTH the pre-conscious generating processes AND the conscious results. Viewed from a third-person perspective our own preconscious mental processes look like neurochemical and associated physical activities in our brains. Viewed introspectively... our preconscious mind seems like a personal but 'empty space' from which thoughts, images and feelings spontaneously arise. WE are as much one thing as the other---and this requires a shift in our second 'centre of gravity' to one where our consciously experienced self becomes just the visible 'tip' of our own embedding, preconscious mind." (Pg. 20)
Commentator Jeffrey Gray observes, "In essence, the Hard Problem [of consciousness] can be stripped down to just two questions: how does the brain create qualia; and how does the brin inspect them?... Velmans' proposed solution... is a version of the dual aspect theory. First-person and third-person accounts of what goes on in John's consciousness/John's brain are both correct. They deal with exactly the same information, but observed from different perspectives. Hey, presto, Houdini is out of the box!... it is time for the problem finally to come out of the philosophical closet. Conscious experience is part of the natural world. Therefore, the only satisfying explanation will be one that shows how consciousness is linked to the scientific account that applies to the rest of that world." (Pg. 49)
But in the Abstract of his concluding article, Velmans states, "My target article... presents evidence for causal interactions between consciousness and brain and some standard ways of accounting for this evidence... I also point out some of the problems of understanding such causal interactions that are not addressed by standard explanations. Most of the residual problems have to do with how to cross the 'explanatory gap' from consciousness to brain. I then list some of the reasons why the route across this gap suggested by physicalism won't work, in spite of its current popularity in consciousness studies. MY own suggested route is ... where consciousness and brain can be seen to be dual aspects of a unifying, psychophysical mind... there are no gaps that cannot be filled---just a different way of understanding consciousness, mind, brain and their causal interaction, with some interesting consequences for our understanding of free will." (Pg. 69)
This collection of articles---but more particularly, his books---will be of great interest to any serious students of the philosophy of mind.
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