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the subjective character of expirince

Thomas Nagel : what it is like to be a bat ?

the qualitative aspect of consciousness (e.g. cold, warmth, pain, itch )

difficult to describe consciousness or qualia

only way is to appeal to other phenomenally conscious expirinces

we may call this subjective character expirince, it is not analazible in terms of any explanatory system of functinal states→ we could ascribe to robots or automata that behave like people even if they expirince nothing

shifts to objectivity do not bring us closer to real nature of the phenomenon but farther away

functionalism explains plesur ein causal terms :

1. how is it caused ( by eating icecream )
2. what it causes ( yum yum sounds)
3. how it is related to other mental states ( desire to have another one )

but this does not explain the exirince itself

logically possible that a replicathat is functionally identical would not expirince anything

this shows that functions alone do not give us expirince

they can be explained by cognitive science ( in terms of computational or neural mechanisms)

ability to dicriminate,categorize and react to environemntal stimuli

integration of information by cognitive stimuli

reportability of mental states

ability of systems to access its own internal states

the focus of attention

the deliberate control of behaviour

difference bewtween awake and asleep

easy problems can be functionalized

example of funcitonalized consciousness

the control of behavior

input for your speech

input for further thoughts

e.g. the Eiffle tower is in Paris

contrast with implict knowledge of grammar, or the ability to ride a bike

certain neural oscillations in cerebral cortex are hypotized to be at the basis of consciouness

oscillations are correlated with awarenss in a number of different modalities ( e.g. the visual and olfactory systems )

consciousness is just mechanism for binding information contests

consciousnesses is just what makes different areas in the brain communicate

a central porcessor that mediates communication between a host of specialized nonconscious modules

when the modules neet to brodcast information to the rest of the system, they send information to the workspace, they act as a kind of communicational blackboard for the rest of the system

how is it that certain information contests are widely accesible within a system

to explain cognitive function we need to specify a mechanism that can perform the function

hard to answer the question" Why is the performance of these functions acompanied by expirince ? "

e.g. a gene stores DNA and transmits heredictary information form one generation to the next

this is all it means to be a gene an entity that performs the relevant storage and transmission function

unlike genes humnas have subjective perspective

= **the difficulty that physicalist theories have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel when they are experienced**

conscious expirince arise when certain functions are preformed, bu why it arises is the central mistery

if consciousnes expirince can only be understood form a subjective ( first person ) perspective, then a neuroscientific ( third person ) theory of consciousness seems to be impossible

no mental substances

problem of finding a place for th emind in a world that is fundamentally physical

how to explain th emind given constraints of a meterialist/physicalist paradigm

consciousness = the ultimate challenge

the argument : phenomenal consciouness shows that here is something wrong with physicalism ( as a complete theory of the world )

Mary grows in a black-and

one day she leaves the room and sees a red tomato in full daylight : " Now I know whta red looks like!"

Mary knows all the relevant physical facts about color perception when she leaves the room

still she learns something new : what it is like to see red

this must be knolwedge of something non physcial

1) Nigel : phenomenal consciousness must be phyisical even though we don't know how it can be

apparently Mary didn't know all the physical facts about color

2) Alteratively, one could argue that Mary does not really need learn something new

she simply rearns to acess old knowledge in a different way

3) The knoewledge argument is not actually an argument against ohysicalism. It works against any theory ( e.g. substance dualism )

the problem seems to boil down to thory vs expirincee. or know-that versus know how

4) There must be a reply. Jackson assumes that the knowleddge argument leads to epiphenomenonalism, but the thought experiment no longer works

= mental states are casued by physical stares, but they hav eno causal effect themselves

how is causal interation between mental and physical substances possible ?

causal losure of the physical domain : we can give a full physical explanation without reference to the mental

e.g. going to the fridge to get something

causal interaction without causal closure of the physical domain

how can mental states have casual effect ?

O'Regan and Noe: the sesomty motor theory of phenomeal consicousness

Daniel Dennet : phenomenal consciouness cannot be investigated scientifically → not very interesting

consicous expirince is temporally extended activity

it is not a 'mental state' nor is it ( in a further step ) reductible to a brain state

conscious expirince depends on our (implicit) knowledge of the sesorimotor laws that govern the relation between possible actions and incoming visual information

conscious expirinces are not passive representational states, they are determined by what we do

"what is it like' to drive a car

depends on what we do while driving a car ( changing gears, hitting breaks) and how skilled we are

what should be the focus of scientific investigation ?

we can only study "b" and that is fine because

1. consicous expirinces themselves
2. beliefs about these expirinces
3. verbal judgements expressing those belifs
4. utterances of some sort or another

if you have consuous expirinces you don't belive you have ( so a, not b) then those expirinces are also inaccessible to scietifc research

if you belive you have consicous expirinces that you don't in fact have ( so b ,not a ) then it is your belifs that we need to explain, not the non existent expirinces

cosnious expirince is an illusion

it is an illusion in the sense that the expirince of conscipusly willing an action is not direct indication that the consious thought has cause the action

the thoughts and intentions that predict our actions are apparent causes of action : they are not really causally eficacious

agents perform voluntary actions without being consciously aware of this

agents have counscious awareness of both willing and doing but they actually fain to perform the action

spiritualist experiments ( e.g. table tuning ) subjects ar enot aware of their active contribution to what they percive as a supranatural phenomenon

automatic writing : subjects are not awaare of an intention to make writing movements

phatological cases : alines or anarchic hand syndome ( patients report that their limbs are moving on their own )

in all these cases the action is somehow controled by the agent but there is no "conscious will"

either the agent is not aware of performing a particular action or the agent is not aware of acting at all

agents expirince conscious will because the action matches with theor intention

you feel in control even if there is no causal connection between your action and the consequences

there can be a sense of agency without any action at all

Wegner does not deny thta it seems to us that we often consciouly will and so domething. Why does the illsuion occurs ?

e.g. confabulation , choice b lindness

subjects had to choose from four identical pair of pantyhoses

when asked why they chose that one , subjects reffeed to certain characterisitcs , but on one mentioned the relative position

people dont really know the real cause of their action

male subjects had to choose between two photos of different women ( blonde / brunette)

then they were given the other photo

"why do you find this woman the msot attractive "

only 13% of the subjets knew something was wrong, the others explain their preference

they were jaust as confident and fast as the control group

hypotherical qustion : what if they would have swapped the photos

84% of the subjects would have known

1. Wegner's argument that we can dissociate between conscious and nonconsious processes seems ratehr convincing
2. in the experiment we find a correlation between conscious thought and action, but actual cause is a third variable
3. ecological validity?
4. do we often have to choose bewween extremly similar alternatives ( vs confabulations)
5. we often are being tricked in offering explanations for something we did not choose? ( vs chioce blindness )