One of the biggest and most beautifull puzzles in the universe is, according to me, the question of consciousness. Therefore, I've decided to write a couple of texts about it, to see if I can shed some light on this mysterious phenomena. I'll start with an epistemological view of the subject, namely the fact that our inability to ever prove that consciouss exists in any other enteties than ourself spawns a sort of paradox.
That I am conscioussness is self evident. It is something that I feel, and since a feeling is defined as something consciouss, I really can't be mistaken. Let's also assume that there is somebody else who's consciouss too. This person can also prove his or hers own conscioussness, but have no way of accessing mine, and can therefore not prove that it exists.
What we have here is a sort of a stand of. My knowledge proves my own conscioussness and the other persons knowledge proves his or hers. It's important to see here, that my knowledge isn't transferable in some sense. It isn't the content of my knowledge that is the important factor for the proof here, but rather the experience itself. The experience proves the phenomenon by beeing the phenomenon itself.
Let's say that for some reason, you don't know the answer to 7+5. You lack that knowledge. Now imagine I show up and tell you that the answer is 12. You gain that knowledge. But have you gained my knowledge? Well, no. You now have a replica of my knowledge. Its content is the same as mine, but it's still not the same experience. You have your experience, I have mine. They might post the exact same thing, but that doesn't mean that they aren't seperated. It's not the same knowledge. It's two different set of knowledge with the same content.
Most knowledge is of the type that can be combined and thereby extended itself to embrace more than it did on its own. If I know that Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and you know that Sweden is in Europe, we can combine our knowledge and get the statement that Stockholm is in Europe. What matters is the abstract contents of the knowledge, not the knowledge itself. I can give you all the reasons why I think that Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and once you got them, your knowledge is as good as mine.
The paradox, which is more of a dilemma rather than a paradox, is this: If it's the case that I am consciouss and know it, and you are consciouss and know it, we can't combine our knowledge and get the true statement that there exists more than one consciouss entity. I can't just tell you that I know that I'm consciouss, since the abstract content of the knowledge isn't the important factor for the proof here. To know that I'm consciouss, you actually have to be me. If there were some way to merge two minds togheter, we could merge our knowledge, but at the same time we would both share the same conscioussness, and thereby the statement that there exists two consciouss entities would't be true anymore. To prove the statement, you have to make the statement false, and thereby you have nothing left to prove. The catch 22 of consciousness.
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That I am conscioussness is self evident. It is something that I feel, and since a feeling is defined as something consciouss, I really can't be mistaken. Let's also assume that there is somebody else who's consciouss too. This person can also prove his or hers own conscioussness, but have no way of accessing mine, and can therefore not prove that it exists.
What we have here is a sort of a stand of. My knowledge proves my own conscioussness and the other persons knowledge proves his or hers. It's important to see here, that my knowledge isn't transferable in some sense. It isn't the content of my knowledge that is the important factor for the proof here, but rather the experience itself. The experience proves the phenomenon by beeing the phenomenon itself.Let's say that for some reason, you don't know the answer to 7+5. You lack that knowledge. Now imagine I show up and tell you that the answer is 12. You gain that knowledge. But have you gained my knowledge? Well, no. You now have a replica of my knowledge. Its content is the same as mine, but it's still not the same experience. You have your experience, I have mine. They might post the exact same thing, but that doesn't mean that they aren't seperated. It's not the same knowledge. It's two different set of knowledge with the same content.
Most knowledge is of the type that can be combined and thereby extended itself to embrace more than it did on its own. If I know that Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and you know that Sweden is in Europe, we can combine our knowledge and get the statement that Stockholm is in Europe. What matters is the abstract contents of the knowledge, not the knowledge itself. I can give you all the reasons why I think that Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and once you got them, your knowledge is as good as mine.
The paradox, which is more of a dilemma rather than a paradox, is this: If it's the case that I am consciouss and know it, and you are consciouss and know it, we can't combine our knowledge and get the true statement that there exists more than one consciouss entity. I can't just tell you that I know that I'm consciouss, since the abstract content of the knowledge isn't the important factor for the proof here. To know that I'm consciouss, you actually have to be me. If there were some way to merge two minds togheter, we could merge our knowledge, but at the same time we would both share the same conscioussness, and thereby the statement that there exists two consciouss entities would't be true anymore. To prove the statement, you have to make the statement false, and thereby you have nothing left to prove. The catch 22 of consciousness.
4 comments:
Very interesting post, Martin! First, I think you mean Catch 22, rather than the Swedish translation "Moment 22". Anyhow, I agree on the notion that the conscious mind isn't possible to prove in any direct kind of way, however, I think that we have very good indirect reason to believe that other people also are sentient beings. For example, we belong to the same species, and it seems that we share our most fundamental parts because of the genetical relation between us, hence, it's reasonable to believe we also share the very fundamental part of our selfs which is the conscious mind. It would be odd, if we look at what we can agree on in a direct manner, to assume we didn't share the quality of being conscious. I may not be able to show you my mind, but I can show you enough for you to have to believe I have one.
Don't know if it solves your riddle, but I think it's an interesting comment on the subject nonetheless.
Hello Tobias!
Of course. Your right. It should be "Catch 22". I've changed it now :) Tack skaruha ;)
I think we look upon the problem in a two different ways.
I see it from a strict logical perspective. In that realm, there is no such thing as "good indirect reason". There is proof. Either you prove a statement, or you don't state it at all. And a proof have to be strict formal, following a given set of rules. There can be no room for errors.
Of course, if you assume a certain set of "truths" (like: "What I see exists independant of me" and so on) and allow for example inductive arguments (the non mathematical type), I agree...Then it's plausible that other people and almost all animals have some form of conscioussness.
I see this from a strictly sceptical view...I see the acceptance of all these basic conditions, not as guilty, but rather as a consequense of my own psychology. Soo I can't help but think they are good and plausible although I can't give an account of why they should be accepted (as I see them as intuitive axioms).
Hi, again and good to hear from you this soon after my comment!
You said:
"I see it from a strict logical perspective. In that realm, there is no such thing as "good indirect reason". There is proof. Either you prove a statement, or you don't state it at all. And a proof have to be strict formal, following a given set of rules. There can be no room for errors."
In that realm it becomes foolish to postulate any empirical statements such as the capital of Sweden being Stockholm or someone else having a conscioussness. Not only can't we say that other people have minds from that intellectual position, we can't say anything at all about the world. In your post you seemed to accept at least some axiomatical beliefs, such as observations being a good form of evidence.
You said:
"Of course, if you assume a certain set of "truths" (like: "What I see exists independant of me" and so on) and allow for example inductive arguments (the non mathematical type), I agree...Then it's plausible that other people and almost all animals have some form of conscioussness."
I am not sure by what reasoning you find your self justified to limit your self to the conscious mind, it seems to me that nothing except your own experiences and some logical comclusions can be proven, not only your mind or your qualia. If you arn't assuming some epistemological axiomatical truths then you can't claim anything to be the case outside your self except some logical truths such as A not being able to exist at the same time it doesn't exist and so on.
Your problem, as I understood it, was how we could ever prove other persons have conscious minds, but from your present position I find you with an even bigger problem, namly how we could prove anything (Well, except your own mind and so forth).
Hello Tobias!
Good that you find it good that I responded so soon. Here comes another respond.
What I tried to illustrate was this:
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Let's assume that it is true that:
(A) X is in Y. (Stockolm is in Sweden)
(B) Y is in Z. (Sweden is in Europe)
Now, let's assume that:
M knows A.
N knows B.
Now we want to make either M or N know that X is in Z.
If M knows something about the outside world, it should be theoretically possible for N to know it too. That's because M knows it on behalf of the CONTENT of his knowledge. Theoretically, N can have exact the same content of his knowledge as M since the content is abstract information, not dependable on a certain consciousness over another. Whatever makes M know A or N know B, it is somekind of theoreticaly transferable information.
The same is true the other way around (that if N knows something, it should be theoretically possible for M to know it too).
***
Ok...Back to schratch. New situation:
Let's assume that it's true that:
(A) M is O
(B) N is P
(C) O=Consciouss and capable of knowledge.
(D) P=Consciouss and capable of knowledge.
(E) O is not P (not the same entity).
Let's further assume that:
M knows A.
N knows B.
We now want M or N to know that A and B.
Now, what I state is that M knows A and N knows B, not because of some transferable information. M knows that A because the fact that A is true (The same goes for N:s knowledge about B).
(Remember that this is not what is stated in the other example. There M knows A and N knows B because of some set of transferable information that they have.)
Now what is needed for M to know that A and B is that M is P. In that way M can know that B. But if M is P, M can no longer (according to (E)) be O. If M isn't O then there is noone who is O, and we only have P left. Both M and N is P. Then there is no way for M to know that A and B, since A no longer is true.
When M tries to make the leap to gain the knowledge of A and B, M in the process makes A untrue.
The same is true for N trying to know that A and B.
***
I hope that this was understandable. I know I used some rather sloppy arrangements here and there but I hope my main though was perceivable.
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