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Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard Problem
How does conscious experience arise out of the functioning of the human brain? How is it related to the behaviour that it accompanies? How does the perceived world relate to the real world? Between them, these three questions constitute what is commonly known as the Hard Problem of consciousness. Despite vast knowledge of the relationship between brain and behaviour, and rapid advances in our knowledge of how brain activity correlates with conscious experience, the answers to all three questions remain controversial, even mysterious. This important new book analyses these core issues and reviews the evidence from both introspection and experiment. To many its conclusions will be surprising and even DT The entire perceived world is constructed by the brain. The relationship between the world we perceive and the underlying physical reality is not as close as we might think. DT Much of our behaviour is accomplished with little or no participation from conscious experience. DT Our conscious experience of our behaviour lags the behaviour itself by around a fifth of a second - we become aware of what we do only after we have done it. DT The lag in conscious experience applies also to the decision to act - we only become aware of our decisions after they have been formed. DT The self is as much a creation of the brain as is the rest of the perceived world. Written by a leading scientist, this analysis of how conscious experience relates to brain and behaviour is accessible and compelling. It will have major implications for our understanding of human nature.
350 pages, Hardcover
First published August 26, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 14, 2013
First of all, I am a recent psychology graduate who specialized in personality psychology and biological psychology/neuropsychology. Jeffrey Gray was a prominent figure in both of those fields, and his reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality is influential to me. Be that as it is, I came to this book with the expectation that it would be excellent.
My expectations were not let down. Despite having been published in 2004, and subsequently probably written after the publication of the second edition of The Neuropsychology of Anxiety in 2000, it still seems pretty up to date here in 2013. The issue of consciousness, and indeed the philosophy of mind as a whole, is a topic of fascination to me and I've read quite a few recent neuropsychological papers on the matter that largely seem in line with the studies presented in this book. The book is incredibly comprehensive. It looks at everything from behavioral studies in psychology, cognitive studies, neuroscience, and various theories proposed by philosophers. He critically, but kindly, analyzes all the theories and takes everything he reviews into consideration. So, even if you end up disagreeing with some of his conclusions, this book is STILL very well worth the read and his tone makes it a very pleasant experience.
The overarching theme of this book is that functionalism is an insufficient account of the mind. He rejects functionalism as false. This is not to say that he rejects it wholeheartedly, though, as he frequently refers to the computational functions of the brain and his own theory of how consciousness works is functionalist in tone. The problem with functionalism for him is that because functionalism accounts for mental states in terms of the input-output/stimulus-response relations, one would expect there to be a 1:1 correspondence of qualia to the mediating role they play in behavior. He reviews some experiments that show that 1) Consciousness is unnecessary for many behaviors, then he moves to the possible implication of that point to consider whether or not consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon and 2) he concludes that consciousness does seem to have a causal role in some forms of behavior, largely that of late error detection. He then looks at some other experiments, largely on the topic of synaesthesia, in which extra qualia of an irrelevant sensory modality are present in response to a particular stimulus. From this he concludes that these 3) qualia have no functional role (that is, the synaesthetic qualia ARE epiphenomenal), so functionalism is false (or at least incomplete).
I've been skeptical of functionalism for a while, so I don't have too many complaints about his conclusions there. The only objection I could think of is that this is an abnormal case that doesn't really tell much about the nature of consciousness.
To reiterate, the three main points he drew from his extensive literature review is that consciousness is unnecessary for many behaviors, but that it also not merely epiphenomenal because it does have a particular role to play in some behaviors. However, while consciousness itself may have a functional purpose, individual qualia do not appear to be identical to functions.
So where does this leave him? In the early chapters he visits the problem of scientific reduction (explaining one theory in terms of another theory) and concludes that reduction of ALL theories to the next one lower isn't possible. His example is how natural selection and other feedback systems operate on the world in ways not reducible to physics and chemistry, yet fully "respect" those laws. He also emphasizes throughout the book that he is not a dualist. Being that he rejects reductive physicalism, dualism, and functionalism, and assures us that he doesn't think consciousness is the fundamental ground of being or that the world is all in hour heads, he also rejects idealism. The only option left to label him with is non-reductive physicalism.
He concludes that he has not solved the hard problem, and that it will be along time before anyone does, but that there is a lot of evidence out there to survey and much that we know already.
One thing I particularly liked was his discussion of intentionality. Being someone who in some moods has favored eliminative materialism, seeing an account of intentionality that is perfectly physicalist pleased me. Basically, he embraces the idea of functional semantics. While I can't find much about it online, from what I understood the meaning of a word (or conscious experience) comes from its role in mediating behavior. That is, a symbol, being a word or conscious experience, obtains meaning from the thing "out there" in the world to which it relates. He demonstrates how intentionality applies to unconscious perception as well, thus stripping down the hard problem of consciousness to qualia alone.
Oddly enough, he seems to accept John Searle's Chinese Room argument. He comes to a rather bizarre conclusion that a computer could never understand the meaning of a word or be conscious, but a robot could. This particular discussion later in the book seemed a bit muddled and inconsistent with his account of intentionality earlier in the book but the author did pass away before it could be published (perhaps I am wrong, but as I understand it, intentionality and semantics are the same, or rather, semantics is intentionality about words?). It's likely that he just never got a chance to properly complete and edit it, and this is evidence by numerous typos and oddities throughout the book. Perhaps the editor that published it felt it best not to make changes to his work out of respect for his passing.
Anyway, psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists, this book may be pricey (around 50 dollars currently for the paperback) but it's totally worth it!
My expectations were not let down. Despite having been published in 2004, and subsequently probably written after the publication of the second edition of The Neuropsychology of Anxiety in 2000, it still seems pretty up to date here in 2013. The issue of consciousness, and indeed the philosophy of mind as a whole, is a topic of fascination to me and I've read quite a few recent neuropsychological papers on the matter that largely seem in line with the studies presented in this book. The book is incredibly comprehensive. It looks at everything from behavioral studies in psychology, cognitive studies, neuroscience, and various theories proposed by philosophers. He critically, but kindly, analyzes all the theories and takes everything he reviews into consideration. So, even if you end up disagreeing with some of his conclusions, this book is STILL very well worth the read and his tone makes it a very pleasant experience.
The overarching theme of this book is that functionalism is an insufficient account of the mind. He rejects functionalism as false. This is not to say that he rejects it wholeheartedly, though, as he frequently refers to the computational functions of the brain and his own theory of how consciousness works is functionalist in tone. The problem with functionalism for him is that because functionalism accounts for mental states in terms of the input-output/stimulus-response relations, one would expect there to be a 1:1 correspondence of qualia to the mediating role they play in behavior. He reviews some experiments that show that 1) Consciousness is unnecessary for many behaviors, then he moves to the possible implication of that point to consider whether or not consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon and 2) he concludes that consciousness does seem to have a causal role in some forms of behavior, largely that of late error detection. He then looks at some other experiments, largely on the topic of synaesthesia, in which extra qualia of an irrelevant sensory modality are present in response to a particular stimulus. From this he concludes that these 3) qualia have no functional role (that is, the synaesthetic qualia ARE epiphenomenal), so functionalism is false (or at least incomplete).
I've been skeptical of functionalism for a while, so I don't have too many complaints about his conclusions there. The only objection I could think of is that this is an abnormal case that doesn't really tell much about the nature of consciousness.
To reiterate, the three main points he drew from his extensive literature review is that consciousness is unnecessary for many behaviors, but that it also not merely epiphenomenal because it does have a particular role to play in some behaviors. However, while consciousness itself may have a functional purpose, individual qualia do not appear to be identical to functions.
So where does this leave him? In the early chapters he visits the problem of scientific reduction (explaining one theory in terms of another theory) and concludes that reduction of ALL theories to the next one lower isn't possible. His example is how natural selection and other feedback systems operate on the world in ways not reducible to physics and chemistry, yet fully "respect" those laws. He also emphasizes throughout the book that he is not a dualist. Being that he rejects reductive physicalism, dualism, and functionalism, and assures us that he doesn't think consciousness is the fundamental ground of being or that the world is all in hour heads, he also rejects idealism. The only option left to label him with is non-reductive physicalism.
He concludes that he has not solved the hard problem, and that it will be along time before anyone does, but that there is a lot of evidence out there to survey and much that we know already.
One thing I particularly liked was his discussion of intentionality. Being someone who in some moods has favored eliminative materialism, seeing an account of intentionality that is perfectly physicalist pleased me. Basically, he embraces the idea of functional semantics. While I can't find much about it online, from what I understood the meaning of a word (or conscious experience) comes from its role in mediating behavior. That is, a symbol, being a word or conscious experience, obtains meaning from the thing "out there" in the world to which it relates. He demonstrates how intentionality applies to unconscious perception as well, thus stripping down the hard problem of consciousness to qualia alone.
Oddly enough, he seems to accept John Searle's Chinese Room argument. He comes to a rather bizarre conclusion that a computer could never understand the meaning of a word or be conscious, but a robot could. This particular discussion later in the book seemed a bit muddled and inconsistent with his account of intentionality earlier in the book but the author did pass away before it could be published (perhaps I am wrong, but as I understand it, intentionality and semantics are the same, or rather, semantics is intentionality about words?). It's likely that he just never got a chance to properly complete and edit it, and this is evidence by numerous typos and oddities throughout the book. Perhaps the editor that published it felt it best not to make changes to his work out of respect for his passing.
Anyway, psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists, this book may be pricey (around 50 dollars currently for the paperback) but it's totally worth it!
July 28, 2020
Well thought work on correlates of consciousness from a neuroscientist biew presented in a technical but accessible language.
August 23, 2009
This is a book written by a scientist and philosopher that studied the problem of consciousness along more than 40 years. He centres the approach on the relashionship between brain and behaviour, and the "mistery" of the conscious experience. In the book, he gives his impressions about the problem evolution across times and conducts the reader to an increasing perception of the concepts, linking neuroscience, biology, evolution theory, ethology etc. The most effective thesis, among others, are: that the entire perceived world is a brain construction; that most of our behaviour has little or nothing to do with consciousness; that we only become aware of our own decisions AFTER they have been formed; and, finally, that the self is a creation of the brain.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews