Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The function of consciousness

When trying to discuss something as delicate and complex as consciousness, I think it's important to define the question at issue on a manageable level. If one tries to attack the core of the problem right away, there's a big chance to get lost in the infernal maze of metaphysics that follows.

One of the most intresting, and at least partly graspable, question is what role conscioussness plays in the big picture. It must be present for some reason. The question is what that reason is.

Before I start reasoning about this, let me just put in a disclaimer here. The following discussion takes for granted that there is something like an external material world. I admit that this is just an assumption I make, and I'll be comming back to this topic in future posts, both regarding to the problem of conscioussness and the more epistemic question about if we really can assume such a thing.

The way I see it, there really are two different ways you can fit in conscioussness into the whole process that the brain undertakes.

One possibility is that it's just a kind of parallel redundant process. In other words: The brain recives an input, make some calculations and then produces an output, and the conscioussness just follows the process without any manipulation of it. In this scenario, the conscioussness can be seen as a passive bystander. Whatever happends in the brain decides what we experience, but there is no feedback process back to the brain.

The other possibility is that conscioussness does play an active role in the process of thinking. The brain recives an input, make some calculations, then sends the information to the conscioussness which somehow manipulates it and then sends it back to the brain for further calculations and production of an output. Where the physical calculation fit in doesn't really matter for the theoretical outline. There could also be several steps of information exchange between the brain and the conscioussness but that doesn't really matter when discussing the general structure.

So, to summarize this in an illustrative way:


Model 1:
1.1 Input--->1.2 Calculations--->1.3 Output
Parallel process: 1.2 Consciousness

Model 2:
2.1 Input--->2.2 Calculations--->2.3 Consciousness (Calculations)--->2.4 Calculations--->2.5 Output



Let me state that it is my firm belief that even if the second model is the right one, the human behaviour doesn't require conscioussness. In other words: I see no reason why a computer theoreticaly shouldn't be able to simulate the exact same cognitive processes as we have, with or without the help of consciousness. Even if the conscioussness have some important calculating part in the animal mind, I see no reason why it couldn't be carried out in a strictly material way. Even if conscioussness is an unavoidable consequense of the pattern itself that constitutes human behaviour, I see no problem with posting a world where this wouldn't have to be the case.

Another thing that we can see right away is that the question "Why are we conscious?" have a single answer in the first model and two of them in the second one. Both explanation demands a physical reality that distinguish itself from our current view of the universe. In other words: No matter which model is the right one (if any), a metaphysical reason for consciousness must be present that answers the question how it is posible that something is consciousness at all. If the second model is the right one, we have to provide an evolutionary explanation for it, in addition to a metaphysical. Note that the first model still would have a genetical explanation, but since that proposal doesn't include some kind of function that would make consciousness affected by natural selection, it couldn't be seen in evolutionary terms.

Another thing we should note is that even if both models demands a metaphysical explanation, the explanations themselves can be totaly different. Model 1 only demands a physical reality that makes it posible for some kind of consciousness to arise. This consciousness doesn't have to do anything really. The only criteria is that it's correlated in an isomorphic way to what goes on in the material process that spawns it (for example a human brain).

Model 2 on the other hand demands, not only that it is posible for a consciousness to arise, but also that the mental realm in some way can affect the material realm. In one way or another, there has to be some kind of feedback process from the conscioussness or else we can't state that it have a function. An input signal that isn't returned doesn't do very much good for the overall process.

I think the best way to tackle this problem is to look at the demanded metaphysical realities that each model spawns, and somehow analyse them to see which one is most plausible. For example, the fact that our experiences seems to be coherent in respect to the situation. When my body is damaged, I feel unpleasant pain which I want to repelish, in the same way that my behaviour try to make it stop. If model 1 was the right one, there really wouldn't be any reason why I couldn't go around and feel pain all the time. The actual content of my feeling, really can't matter, if it isn't capable to affect the outcome of the situation. Let me try to illustrate this:

Let's say that we have person A and person B. Person A feels happy when his body isn't in danger of being damaged in any way, but feel sadness and pain once something happen. Person B feels sadness and pain all the time. Remeber that I only talk about the qualia here (the feeling itself). A and B will act in precisely the same way, since their consciousness can't affect their bodys in any kind of way. Therefore, it would't really matter if consciousness was constructed like in person A or B. Isn't it pretty strange then, that we seem to have this coherent mind that we at least think we have?

Another way to attack the problem is to examine what we are consciouss about. Needless to say, most of what goes on inside our brains, we aren't aware of. There are a lot of unconsciouss processes that takes place that can be messured in different kind of tests, althoug we ourself couldn't notice them even if a gun was put to our heads. One example is implicit knowledge. We can't explain how to ride a bike no mather how experienced we are with this activity. However, we have no problem actually riding it. It happends more or less automatic. Now, why would this be the case? Wouldn't it be posible to be consciouss about all the processes that happends inside the head? We already have the power to, to some extent, experience several things at once, so there shouldn't be any theoretical reason why a being subjectively couldn't take part of all the calculations that constitutes its behaviour. Why then is the human mind so restricted? If conscioussness in some way can affect the outcome in the physical world, then it makes sense. Conscioussness only experience the parts it can affect. It's there because of its power to change things, so why would it be present on any other level than its function? In the first model scenario, another account has to be given to why consciouss experience doesn't contain lower level processes.

Of course, all of this is pretty ungratefull work, since it's really hard to say something at all about what is plausible or not, when it comes to the construction of realities whose inner workings we know next to nothing about, and even more, realities that we are trapped inside ourself. I admit to not entierly escaping the very metaphysical maze that I warned about in the begining of this text. It's just really, really, really (understatement) hard to avoid it.

But rest assured. There will be more maze running in the future.