Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind

by Michael Tye

Can neurophysiology ever reveal to us what it is like to smell a skunk or to experience pain? In what does the feeling of happiness consist? How is it that changes in the white and gray matter composing our brains generate subjective sensations and feelings? These are several of the questions that Michael Tye addresses, while formulating a new and enlightening theory about the phenomenal "what it feels like" aspect of consciousness. The test of any such theory, according to Tye, lies in how well it handles ten critical problems of consciousness. Tye argues that all experiences and all feelings represent things, and that their phenomenal aspects are to be understood in terms of what they represent. He develops this representational approach to consciousness in detail with great ingenuity and originality. In the book's first part Tye lays out the domain, the ten problems and an associated paradox, along with all the theories currently available and the difficulties they face. In part two, he develops his intentionalist approach to consciousness. Special summaries are provided in boxes and the ten problems are illustrated with cartoons. A Bradford Book Representation and Mind series

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Conrado]

I've read chapters 1 and 2 and that's all I'm reading for study group purposes. Tye presents in a nice and short manner some main problems with phenomenal consciousness, their relevance, and tries to show how they form a particular kind of paradox that results in a radical epiphenomenalism about qualia; his theory of consciousness is supposed to disarm this paradox (assuming its argument is invalid).

So how does this paradox arise, and what's so problematic about it?

The starting point here is what Tye calls "the problem of perspectival subjectivity", which is essentially an epistemological problem with regards to our phenomenal consciousness that puts special pressure on theories that try to identify phenomenally conscious states (PC states hereafter) with physical states (P states hereafter): since it is the case that fully understanding PC states like pain requires knowing what it is like to go through such states (which in turn requires adopting an experiential point of view), and since fully understanding P states does not have such a requirement, we come to the conclusion that PC states and P states don't have the same properties; therefore (by Leibniz's Law) they're not identical. The problem can be put in the form of an argument:

P1 PC states are subjective ("perspectivally subjective") in the sense that comprehending them requires the adoption of a certain experiential point of view;
P2 P states are objective in the sense that comprehending them does note require such adoption;
[Leibniz's Law: For any x and y and for any property f, if x and y are identical, then they share the exact same f]
C PC states and P states are not identical.

If you want to stay on physicalist ground, you might either (I) reject P1; that is, deny the perspectival nature of PC states, or (II) reject P2; that is, deny the objectivity of P states. For reasons I'm omitting here for the sake of brevity, none of these two options are really plausible, even if we try to make a distinction between fully knowing a sensation and knowing what it is like to go through it, or try to broaden our conception of the physical in order to fit PC states under that label.

So physicalism won't do, and we're forced to at least adopt some kind of property dualism, according to which PC states are irreducible to P states (which doesn't necessarily imply adopting substance dualism, mind you) and essentialy perspectival. Does that solve the problem of perspectival subjectivity? Yes, it does. So that means there's no more problems, right? No, it doesn't.

If we accept that PC states perspectivally subjective, then we have to accept (for reasons I'm also omitting here for brevity) that PC states are not physical in the broadest sense possible of being fundamentally constituted or realized by microphysical proprerties; the problem with this is that, if PC states are not physical even in this sense, then they can't have any causal relevance to our behavior, since the only way for PC states to have causal relevance would be to have indirect causal power from the physical properties that directly cause behavior, and this requires the constitution or realizablity of PC states by microphysical states. So we're forced to conclude that PC states (like pain) don't make any difference to our behavior.

To summarize the paradox, we can also put it in the form of an argument:

P1 PC states are perspectivally subjective;
P2 If PC states are perspectivally subjective, then they're neither identical to, nor realized by, objective physical states;
P3 If PC states are neither identical to, nor realized by, objective physical states, then they're not even broadly physical states;
P4 If PC states are not even broadly physical states, then they're causally irrelevant.
∴ PC states are causally irrelevant.

The problem with this argument, and really what makes it wholly paradoxical in the first place, is that we've arrived at an utterly absurd conclusion by seemingly correct premises and valid reasoning (according to the inference rules of classical logic).

It's not hard to see why this conclusion is absurd:

(I) We can give complete physical explanations of our behavior without postulating our experiences as relevant causes, and so my pain never really causes me to use my hand in order to block my nose whenever I have an experience of a really disguting smell. That's the case of phenomenal to physical causation; however, the conclusion also imples that phenomenal to mental (phenomenal or not) causation is equally impossible, and so my experiences never really cause any psychological states (I can't even say that I can remember past experiences when I experience something in the present, because experiences never cause anything!).

(II) If PC states are causally irrelevant, then we cannot justify the belief that people other than ourselves have experiences; that is, we cannot solve the epistemological problem of other minds: the epiphenomenalist must concede the metaphysical possiblity of there being a world that's exactly like ours with the exception that I am the only one having experiences and feelings, but he cannot (for reasons I'm omitting here) give any reasons to believe that I'm not actually in this world.

Even worse, the epiphenomenalist must also concede the metaphysical possibility of there being another world exactly like ours with the exception that I'm not having any experience whatsoever, even though I'm capable of having mental states such as beliefs and desires (there's an assumption underlying this thought, but I won't go deep into it), but again he's not able to give me any reason to believe that I'm already in this world. So not only is there a problem in justifying other minds (i.e., experiences), but I can't even justify that I have a mind (i.e., that I'm having experiences).

That's... really perplexing, and hard to digest. It's no wonder Tye seems incapable of accepting the conclusion, going so far as to say that

"[Experiences] are so basic to our ordinary conception of ourselves and the world we live in that we should never trust a philosophical argument that leads to an opposing conclusion. In any such argument, there must be a mistake, even if we cannot say just where the mistake lies." (p.58)

I think this attitude is a little too faithful to common sense, and most of his motivation comes down to brute intuitions about our mental life; if we have reasons to reject the appeal to intuitions in this case, then we shouldn't regard this conclusion with incredulous stares, even though this will hardly ease our philosophical anxieties (in any case, I tend to agree with Hume that we're so naturally biased to certain conceptions that we'll tend to ignore this thought in ordinary contexts). However, if you agree with Tye that there's a problem with the argument, you'll have to come up with an explanation -- and that's a whole other story.

I really liked reading this, though I'm not sure if I'll check the rest of the book anytime soon, since I have other priorities in my reading list. I do recommend it to anyone interested in philosophy of mind, though.

[Joel Alvarado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book!! The way he explains how feelings are your own and can never be shared... those things stick dude

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A PHILOSOPHER PROPOSES A THEORY OF "PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS"

Michael Tye is a philosopher at the University of Texas at Austin, who has also written books such as 'Consciousness Revisited: Materialism without Phenomenal Concepts,' ;Consciousness, Color, and Content,' 'The Imagery Debate,' etc.

He wrote in the "Acknowledgements" section of this 1995 book, "[in 1984] I tried to defend a materialist view of experience and feeling against some familiar philosophical objections... in later years, I came to think that I had made a serious mistake. Not only are the phenomenal or felt aspects of our mental lives representational but also (relatedly) they are not even in the head at all... The present book is an attempt to explain why my earlier assumptions should be rejected and to propose an alternative positive theory... The thesis that phenomenal character is representational is an idea whose time has come."

He adds in the Introduction, "The target domain... is PHENOMENAL consciousness... the sort of consciousness that is integral to experiences and sensations... The target problems, of which there are ten, are each concerned with an important aspect of phenomenal consciousness. The goal is to articulate a theory that solves ALL the problems." (Pg. xiii-xiv)

He states, "The thesis that phenomenal consciousness is real and distinct from higher-order consciousness is sometimes resisted on the grounds that accepting phenomenal consciousness automatically necessitates accepting that the way things phenomenally look and feel are fixed from birth or shortly thereafter, once the receptor cells are matured. But this is just not so. As long as you agree... that some mental states have a subjective or phenomenal character to them, you have granted phenomenal consciousness, whatever your views on its variability." (Pg. 6-7)

He argues, "consider... the case of pain. Intuitively, pain is a feeling; pain and the feeling of pain are identical... The overall conclusion I draw is that feelings and experiences generally have intentional content. Philosophical orthodoxy on this topic is just plain wrong. The issue we must now address is that of how the phenomenal character of feelings and experiences is related to their intentional contents." (Pg. 130-131)

He asserts, "Phenomenal content, I maintain, is content that is appropriately poised for use by the cognitive system, content that is abstract and nonconceptual. I call this the PANIC theory of phenomenal character:... Poised Abstract Nonconceptual Intentional Content... The PANIC theory entails that no belief could have phenomenal character. A content is classified as phenomenal only if it is nonconceptual and poised." (Pg. 137-138)

He adds, "This point seems to me to be very important. The suggestion I am making is that there is no gap IN THE WORLD between phenomenal and physical states. The gap lies in different ways of conceiving certain physical states, different concepts that we apply... in the distance between the phenomenal and nonphenomenal modes of presentation. My proposal, then, is ontologically MINIMALIST. Yes, there is a gap... But that does not mean and there is some spooky stuff out there in the world... The gap is conceptual." (Pg. 179-180)

He concludes, "That, then, is my theory of phenomenal consciousness. What I have tried to show is that, given this theory, we can solve the ten problems of consciousness. No other theory I am aware of has the resources to handle ALL the problems I have adumbrated... there is, I believe, no reason to think that something essential to phenomenal consciousness lies beyond the reaches of my approach." (Pg. 207)

This book will interest those studying the philosophy of mind.

[Walter Schutjens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great exposition of representationalist theories of the mind. My favourite aspect of it was the characterization of phenomenal content and how that solves the issue of perspectival subjectivity (aka THE KNOWLEDGE ARGUMENT). 5/5
An overview of Tye’s theory of phenomenal intentional content must be given to explain that. He characterizes it as PANIC which stands for “Poised Abstract Nonconceptual Intentional Content” (1996, p.138). To clarify the concept, states with a different PANIC will have different phenomenal characters, and states with the same PANIC, given they are introspected with the same phenomenal concepts will have the same phenomenal character. Its elements thus act as the main tenants of the representationalist framework used to represent objects to ourselves in perception. ‘Poised’ refers to the most strictly physically functionalist aspect of intentional content, referring to the state’s ability to receive input and direct output. The output meaning the ability to impact the belief and desire systems or other functional aspects (memory, reasoning processes etc.) of the brain, and input referring to the ability to receive sense data. ‘Abstract’ refers to the fact that no concrete objects of a particular nature are conceptualized, only ‘bundles of sense data’, what coherent whole they refer to is not contained in the intentional content. It all works into a perfectly coherent functionalist argument when applying phenomenal concepts on introspection - reading on such a system based response to the topic of consciousness makes one really skeptical about any truly held beliefs and the nature of what I am seeing - that is the only downside.

[Jay Brand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Tye provides 10 problems that collectively could serve to distinguish between adequate and inadequate theories of consciousness. These problems focus on the function of consciousness, essentially our experience of it. Hence, he seeks to integrate traditional representational theories with their phenomenology - uniting cognition and qualia, if you will. I believe he does a fantastic job of it!

[Tudor · Rating 4 out of 5]

good well written book

i don't know how i feel about representationalist theories of mind, but i like tye's and i like that what he does with phenomenal content

i am most unsettled about his rejection of supervenience, i don't really see how it makes sense for him to hold that position and still consider himself any brand of physicalist, what does a creature's evolutionary history have to do with phenomenal content that does not show up in the "microphysical" the story he tells is not very convincing

the rest is generally interesting an I think a great contribution to pom

[Kayson Fakhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

it twists.

[Mugwump Jism · Rating 4 out of 5]

About as much fun as you can have inverting your mind upon itself.