Daniel
Dennett says that when all the “easy” (or functional) questions
about consciousness have been answered, then that's all we need to
know. Or to use Dennett's own
words: “Once all the Easy Problems are solved, consciousness is
explained.”
So
what are these easy questions? According to David Chalmers (whom
Dennett was partly responding to), they include:
“...
all the cognitive and behavioural functions in the vicinity of
experience – perceptual discrimination, categorisation, internal
access, verbal report...”
Of
course Chalmers offers a riposte to Dennett by saying that
“there
may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the
performance of these functions accompanied by experience?”
Is
it that Dennett simply ignores this question? Surely not. Does he see
it as a “pseudo-problem”? Possibly. He certainly sees qualia as
pseudo-entities, so perhaps this “problem of consciousness” is a
pseudo-problem. But why?
Chalmers himself comments on Dennett's position (or on those who hold a similar position). He says that people like Dennett “deny the phenomenon”. Chalmers continues:
Chalmers himself comments on Dennett's position (or on those who hold a similar position). He says that people like Dennett “deny the phenomenon”. Chalmers continues:
“...
once we have explained the functions such as accessibility,
reportability, and the like, there is no further phenomenon called
'experience' to explain. Some explicitly deny the phenomenon,
holding, for example that what is not externally verifiable cannot be
real. Others achieve the same effect by allowing that experience
exists, but only if we equate 'experience' with something like the
capacity to discriminate and report.”
The
obvious point to make here is that if
accessibility,
reportability, discrimination, etc. = experience (or consciousness)
then
why use the word 'experience' (or 'consciousness') at all? The
problem here is that these elimitivists may well agree with that
statement. In other words, why bother talking about experience or
consciousness? Let's just stick to more scientific terms such as
'accessibility', 'reportability', etc.
This
verificationist position, on the other hand, seems both obviously
false and absurd. Yes, there is a problem – indeed a scientific
problem – with verifiability when it comes to experience and the
mind generally. Though having a scientific or philosophical problem
with X doesn't automatically mean that X “can't be
real” or doesn't exist.
The
basic point is that “perceptual discrimination, categorisation,
internal access, verbal report” could all occur without
consciousness or experience. Is that true? (That's
question against Chalmers rather than against Dennett.) And even if
they could occur - in principle - without consciousness, perhaps they still always come along with consciousness... at least in human beings.
One argument would be that all these functional things can happen
within a computer. A computer could perceptually discriminate,
categorise, have internal access to its own states or information and
even verbally report things. In fact computers do these things today.
However, computers aren't conscious – they don't experiences anything
when they carry out these functions. Despite saying that, wouldn't a functionalist,
Dennett or a believer in AI say that if a computer carries out these
functions then, by definition, it would be conscious? Chalmers would deny that. However, many scientists and some
philosophers wouldn't.
Or
is the argument that if these functions are carried out without
consciousness in computers, then that could also be the case with
human beings? Indeed is the argument stronger than that? If they occur
without consciousness in computers, the they must occur without
consciousness in humans. That seems obviously false.
It
can also be said that consciousness or experience itself is
functional. Or, at the least, it has a “functional role”. That's
exactly the possibility which Chalmers brings up. He writes:
“This
is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will
turn out to play an important cognitive role.”
I
would say that experience/consciousness obviously has a “cognitive role”. Indeed why
does Chalmers see it as a mere possibility rather than an actuality?
There are of course brain functions which occur which we aren't
conscious of. Though there are functions which we are conscious of. Indeed
there are some functions which at certain points we're not conscious of and which we then become conscious of.
References
Chalmers,
David, 'Facing up to
the problem of consciousness', from the Journal of
Consciousness Studies 2 (1995).
Dennett,
Daniel, Consciousness
Explained (1991)
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