A lot of philosophers seem to take the higher-order thought theory of consciousness to be eliminative or deflationary about consciousness; of course, it doesn’t help that people go around saying that we need to get rid of qualia or even that we should endorse the claim that we ourselves are zombies! But aside from this misguided rhetoric I just don’t see any argument which shows that the higher-order theory is eliminative or deflationary. Of course I do not deny that it is counter-intuitive but so is any cutting edge theory. Let us rehearse what I take to be the basic argument for the higher-order theory.

1. A mental state that I am in no way aware of myself as being in is not a conscious mental state

This seems to me to be a common sense platitude and maybe even an analytic truth. If one accepts this then some kind of higher-order theory of consciousness is true: (1) is the converse of the transitivity principle.

2. Certain kinds of thoughts can make us aware of things.

Thoughts that are seemingly unmediated by inference and represent the target as present make us aware of the target. if this isn’t true then higher-order thought theory is false, though some other kind of higher-order theory may still be true.

3. Phenomenal feel is a matter of what it is like for one to have conscious mental states

This also seems like a common sense platitude. If one accepts this then explaining phenomenal consciousness is just explaining what it is like for one to have conscious mental states.

4. What it is like for one to have a conscious mental state is determined by a higher-order thought

This is supported or at least made plausible by considerations about wine tasting and the like. In the wine tasting case one’s experience changes as one learns a new concept. It is consistent with this that applying a concept to one’s first-order states results in a change in phenomenal experience with no change in the first-order state’s properties (this is not the only thing this is consistent with of course). If this is right (and it is presumably empirically testable) then applying new concepts results in a change in what it is like for one to have the experience. If this is right then perhaps it is not too crazy to think that applying concepts is what results in phenomenal feel in the first place.

5. Only conscious mental states exhibit phenomenal feel

This is where the higher-order theory stands or falls. If it really is the case that there are no phenomenal feels when a state is unconscious then we really would have evidence that higher-order thoughts result in or produce phenomenal consciousness. It is not clear that this is true but it can be supported by philosophical analysis. For instance it is not at all clear that anything substantive hangs on whether we call qualitative properties  of which we are in no way aware phenomenally conscious or not. if all one means is that unconscious pains have some property in virtue of which they are pains and that when we are aware of ourselves as being in feels a certain way then there is no disagreement. if on the other hand, one means that the unconscious pain feel painful for the person that has it then it is not clear what that would even mean. Besides this there are no telling empirical reasons to think that it is wrong.

Now each one of these claims is more or less controversial but if one accepts them then one accepts the higher-order thought theory and it seems to me that nothing in these four claims rules out qualia realism. In fact it seems that if these five claims are true then we have succeeded in explaining what phenomenal consciousness is and if we ultimately identify the neural means by which all of this is implemented then we will have discovered that consciousness is physical.

As of right now it seems like we can conceive of creatures that have HOTs but which lack phenomenal feels but further empirical results may yet show that the HOT theory is the best theory of consciousness available (or if you prefer: it may show that it is true). The acknowledgement that it seems conceivable to have HOTs without phenomenal feel is enough to get qualia realism but not enough to show that higher-order thought theory is false. Is it really so strange that we should find out that qualia just are higher-order thoughts and that higher-order thoughts just are brain states? Sure, it is surprising; but is it more surprising than relativity theory, quantum mechanics,  or string theory? I should think that the discovery of the relativity of simultaneity, Bose-Einstein condensates, dimensionless point-particles, and 11 dimensional space-time are quite a bit surprising indeed!

In the previous post I tried to differentiate my view from type-z materialism. In this post I will address type-q materialism. Dave says, in Consciousness and its Place in Nature

Are there any other options for the materialist? One further option is to reject the distinctions on which this taxonomy rests. For example, some philosophers, especially followers of Quine (1951), reject any distinction between conceptual truth and empirical truth, or between the a priori and the a posteriori, or between the contingent and the necessary. One who is sufficiently Quinean might therefore reject the distinction between type-A and type-B materialism, holding that talk of epistemic implication and/or modal entailment is ungrounded, but that materialism is true nevertheless. We might call such a view type-Q materialism. Still, even on this view, similar issues arise. Some Quineans hold that explaining the functions explain everything (Dennett may be an example); if so, all the problems of type-A materialism arise. Others hold that we can postulate identities between physical states and conscious states in virtue of the strong isomorphic connections between them in nature (Paul Churchland may be an example); if so, the problems of type-B materialism arise. Others may appeal to novel future sorts of explanation; if so, the problems of type-C materialism arise. So the Quinean approach cannot avoid the relevant problems.

As I found out last Friday we can add David Rosenthal to the list of type-q materialists ion addition to Mandik and Weisberg. I agree with Mandik and Weisberg when they complain that it is not obvious how these problems arise for the Quinean. Take for example the type-b Quinian. She will hold that there are mind/brain identities but will go on to deny that these identities are necessary (nothing is necessary). This immediately defuses Dave’s objections to type-b materialism. There are no strong identities for the type-q position (a strong identity is a necessary truth that cannot be known a priori and is just brute). Nor are zombies an issue since the type-q will grant that they are conceivable (while muttering “whatever that means”) but so what? The identities are not necessary (nothing is, remember since modal cannot be given coherent truth-conditions) so the conceivability of zombies is irrelevant to the truth of materialism at the actual world. Zombie sonly get their bite from the necessity of identity. So problems of type-b materialism do not arise for the Quinian.

But I grant that modal talk is meaningful even though ultimately dependent on empirical justification. True empiricists wait until there is empirical evidence that merits the revision of intuitions. They do not consider every alternative as relevant; rather they make decisions about about what is most likely the case based on parsimony, simplicity, and elegance as well as explanatory power and congruency with known empirical data. Until we have some very good reason to reject [](x=x) I take the proof of it to be convincing and to justify believing that identities are necessary. Modal theory is a theory and so should be held to those standards. I claim that according to those standards basic modal intuitions should be trusted. Things get complicated quick but the necessity of identity is surely safe!

But even so there is much in the type-q position that I agree with and re-reading Pete and Josh’s paper I can see why people would say I was a type-q materialist. Their basic argument, as I see it, is that if Quine is right then every concept is open to revision in the face of empirical discoveries. Thus conceptual analysis of the concept of consciousness a priori will do us no good because Quinians cannot rule out that the concept will not need to be revised in the light of future empirical evidence. I agree in principle with this. For instance I have argued that empirical evidence suggests that it is possible that pain and painfulness come apart contrary to our initial a priori intuitions about pain. This is a key part of my counter  to the zombie argument. But notice that my argument is intrinsically modal in nature. I claim that pain asymbolia shows that it is conceptually coherent that painfulness is a contingent property of pain and so our a priori intuitions about pain are suspect until the empirical issue is settled. Discovering what actually is the case has the effect of ruling our some a priori conditionals. Ao, we can know a priori that if painfulness is an intrinsic feature of pains then various things follow and we can know that if painfulness is not an intrinsic feature of pains then various other things follow. We then need to know which is actually the case. I even agree that this might count as revising our concept of pain to include painfulness as a contingent property.

And I certainly agree with the characterization of the a priori physicalist deduction,

Consider the following scenario. I am angry, but not consciously so. I storm around the house bashing into things and grumbling, but when asked, I snarl, “I’m not mad!”  Later, my anger becomes conscious, and I see that my interlocutor was correct. I was angry, but the anger was nonconscious. Then I became conscious of the anger, and there was something it was like for me to be angry. Most folk will find this a plausible story, and certainly not one that is confused or contradictory. Thus, a reasonable clarification of “there’s something it’s like for the subject” is “the subject is conscious of being in a state.” But being conscious of something can plausibly be cashed out in functional terms. Thus, if we find the physical conditions that realize this state, we can reason, a priori, from the physical facts to the phenomenal facts.

I can even agree in principle with their expression scientism,

But more to the point for current research, the industry of modal intuition-mongering loses its reason for being. It is of little interest if zombies are conceivable. They are, in that nothing can be ruled out from the armchair. We cannot tell today where empirical results will drive us tomorrow. And whether zombies are possible or not depends strictly upon what our best theory says. And that is a matter for science to determine. Maybe qualia can be captured in a functional theory of the mind; maybe they cannot. That is for science to decide, not a priori philosophizing.

I have been hearing various and sundry rumors about my being a type-q materialist or perhaps even a type-z materialist and I want to set the record straight. In this post I will talk about some of the things that Dave Bieseker says in his recent Zombies and the Paradox of Phenomenal Consciousness (JSC 17(3-4)).

Bieseker’s claim is that we are zombies. When Chalmers and others conceive of creatures physically just like us but which lack consciousness they actually end up conceiving of the actual world! Zombies would be just as convinced that they were not zombies as Chalmers and I are convinced that we are not zombies but they would be wrong. That, according to Beiseker, is our actual position. On his view what is conceivable but not possible is the ‘supermaterialist’ qualia that Chalmers thinks he has.

One thing to note is that Beiseker denies that the mind-brain identities of his materialism are necessary. He claims that the identities are true here but not in all possible worlds. We disagree about this. As I have previously said I accept that identities are necessary are that we are justified in believing this.

It also seems to me that type-z materialism is really just eliminativism about consciousness of the type-a variety. I am aquatinted with my qualia in a way that makes me all but certain that I have them. I agree that if zombies were conceivable they would think that they had qualia like I do and would be wrong and also that they would not know that they were wrong. I think I know I am not wrong and so know that I am not a zombie. This is important because in the shombie argument I conceive of merely physical creatures that nonetheless have the same conscious experience that I do and I mean by that not what Beiseker means but the kind of consciousness that Chalmers means to be talking about. That’s what I can conceive of as being physical: real consciousness! Not zombie consciousness! Of course that’s physical.

Beiseker warns against this strategy saying,

The overall lesson for materialists is that they must be careful not to engage the argument in the supermaterialist’s own preferred parlance, for when they do, a smart opponent like Chalmers (or Alter) is able to paint them into uncomfortable corners. Consider, for instance, my earlier suggestion that the problem with the conceivability argument lies in the vicinity of (P3)[If P & ~Q is possible, then materialism is false]. That is true, but only if we are prepared to adopt a zombie’s perspective or way of talking. Things look otherwise if we use terms in the way that Chalmers would prefer. For according to his manner of speaking, when type-Z materialists suggest that our own epistemic and conceptual perspective is no different from that of zombies, it looks instead like they are ‘really’ committed to the idea that P & ~Q is true of our own world. Thus it would seem that type-Z materialism must really be committed to…an implausible (‘Churchlandish’) type-E eliminativism about consciousness. But that of course isn’t quite right, for zombies (and their type-Z advocates), as opposed to eliminativists, do not and need not eschew everyday, ordinary talk about consciousness. Their project instead is to reconceive it in an appropriately materialist fashion.

Here Beiseker is making his complaint that people like Chalmers have tacitly assumed that our world (aka the actual world)  is a world where qualia are superphysical. I agree with the complaint but not for the reasons here. First note that Beiseker says he is not an eliminativist because he doesn’t advocate getting rid of common sense folk psychological concepts in favor of neuroscience concepts. His talk of ‘re conceiving’ qualia talk in a materialist fashion sounds like the type-a move of defining consciousness to be physical without the elimination of folk-psychological concepts.The problem with type-z materialism is not that zombies beg the question it is that it fails to take account of the first-person data that I and many others have. True a zombie would say just that but I, and not he, know that I am right because I have the relevant experiences (and my zombie wouldn’t which is why it wouldn’t know and would be wrong).

Once we have the shombie case in hand and see that it is not a type-z world that is being conceived then we can see why the zombie argument tacitly assumes that consciousness is nonphysical at the outset. Just as in the physicalist case we can divide responses to the shombie argument into type-a, -b, and -c. The type-a response will be to deny the conceivability of shombies, the type-b response will be to admit their conceivability but deny their possibility, the type-c response will admit that they seem conceivable but deny that they are ideally conceivable. Chalmers will not opt for teh type-b response because of his views about the link between conceivability and possibility so that leaves type-a and type-c. Type-c will more than likely seem dubious to him n the dualism case since he thinks it is dubious in the physicalist case. That leaves type-a. But the type-a dualist just defines qualia as nonphysical. There is no other reason, for all that can be known a priori, for thinking that shombies are inconceivable.

Beiseker goes on to say,

Something similar is going on with various ‘reverse-zombie’ arguments (see Brown 2010, Frankish 2007, Stalnaker 2002, Balog 1999). Such reverse-zombie exercises strongly suggest the unsoundness of the conceivability argument, without specifying exactly where the original argument goes wrong. In that respect, they resemble Gaunilo’s rejection of the ontological argument. Following Stalnaker, Brown suggests that the weakness in the conceivability argument lies with (P1); zombies only seem to be conceivable. Balog suggests instead that the culprit is (P2), while by way of reply, Chalmers maintains that reverse-zombie arguments are not parallel to the original conceivability argument after all. They present us with scenarios that, according to Chalmers, are not directly conceivable but rather conceivable only ‘at arms length’ or in some attenuated ‘meta’ sense.

Here Beiseker presents Chalmers as a type-a dualist (which I suspect is probably right) and it is true that Kati and I disagree on where the problem is in the argument. But that is because the response to the type-b physicalist works, or so it seems to me. But at any rate my overall argumentative strategy was to try to engage the dualist as much as possible and so I wanted to grant Chalmers the connection between conceivability and possibility. Given that and the intuitive claim that zombies and shombies are equally prima facie conceivable it follows that only one of them is ideally conceivable and the other one just seems to be conceivable to us now. Chalmers thinks that it is shombies that have this status, I think that it is zombies that have this status…who’s right? At this point we need more than a priori arguments which is why I think they should be deprioritized. If dualism turns out to be actually true then of course zombies are the ones that are ideally conceivable while if physicalism turns out to be true then it is shombies that turn out to be ideally conceivable. Since we can’t tell right now we must wait for further evidence. Just as type-a physicalism must be set aside so to must type-a dualism. That leaves us with type-c.

Beiseker continues,

However, this reply [by Chalmers to the reverse-zombie arguments] has a vague whiff of the paradoxical to it, for the reverse perspective from which things are only conceivable in this attenuated ‘meta’ sense is at the same time the very materialistic scenario that the original zombie argument so stridently insists is conceivable in a much stronger sense. Once again, we come face-to-face with the remarkably ambivalent attitude proponents of the original conceivability argument adopt towards zombies. While they are conceivable, they aren’t conceivably actual.

Now to this I object! When Chalmers (there really are too many ‘David’s out there!) says that Shombies may be negatively conceivable but are not positively conceivable he does not think of shombies as zombies! That would indeed be strange. He would then in effect be saying that zombies were not really conceivable. That is not what he is saying. He is saying that he can’t see how merely physical creatures could have consciousness like ours. Shombies are not merely zombies stipulated to have consciousness like our!

Beiseker goes on to say something that I do agree with very much right after this,

One might well take the whole point of reverse-zombie considerations to be that of showing that the notions of direct and meta-conceivability are themselves up for grabs. For whether or not one takes some situation to be directly conceivable or conceivable only ‘at arms length’ depends upon one’s presuppositions about the nature of the actual world.

This is for the most part exactly what I think. Whether one finds zombies or shombies to be ‘really’ conceivable or not depends on how you think the actual world is but since we do not know how the actual world is yet the a priori arguments do nothing but reveal where our intuitions lies (which in turn reflect theories that we accept).

The special issue of The Journal of Consciousness Studies that I edited is now out…it is entitled ‘Fishy and Here’ (from Clare Batty’s paper)…I hope that is meant as an illustration of phenomenal consciousness and not as a comment on the papers contained in the issue 😉

As I noted previously, I haven’t been all that good at keeping up with the NYU Mind and Language seminar, and I am going to have to miss this one coming up because of committee meetings :(, which is too bad since this week’s speaker is Alvin Goldman. The paper is a very long defense of simulation theory, which should come as no surprise. I must confess that I have never found the debate between theory-theory and simulation theory to be very interesting but one of the interesting things that I learned from Goldman’s paper is his views about unconscious introspection and in the appendix to the paper where he defends this notion he concludes by presenting a nice puzzle for those of us who like higher-order theories of consciousness.

To put it simply Goldman argues that there is empirical evidence which suggests that in order for me to be able to attribute a mental state, say digust, to you I have to internally simulate, or mirror, the state and then I use that state to attribute the state to you and that this can happen even though the mirrored state is unconscious. In order for me to introspect the mirrored mental state I would presumably token a higher-order state of the kind which would –if the higher-order theory is right– make the first-order state conscious. But we know that the state is not conscious. What are we to say about this given that the empirical evidence is as Goldman suggests?

One thing we could do, as he notes, is to take this as an argument against the higher-order theory. Goldman does not seem to want to do this; nor do I. What are we to do then? He glosses a couple of different suggestions but concludes by saying that he isn’t sure what the right answer to this puzzle is. On reading this it occurred to me that the puzzle could be solved by denying that the higher-order thoughts that one has when one attributes the state to others doesn’t have the same content as the one that attributes the state to oneself. When one has a suitable higher-order thought to the effect that one is in a mental state the HOT represents the state as the one that you, yourself, are actually in now; it represents that state as present. However when one is introspecting an unconscious mental state for the purpose of attributing it to someone else one is arguably conscious of the state not as being present but rather as the state that one is attributing. Being conscious of a mental state in this way does not make the state one is conscious of a conscious mental state. In short we have many thoughts about first-order states that do not make those states conscious. This is because it is only a certain kind of thought that makes us conscious of the mental states in the appropriate way. This, it seems to me, solves the puzzle.