If Consciousness Is a Natural Phenomenon, Then…

 

If consciousness is a natural phenomenon, then it must also be a scientific phenomenon.

So isn’t it the case that all human beings — and probably many animals — instantiate (or “have”) what we call consciousness?

Yet it can be supposed that even the former seemingly innocent set of statements and questions may be problematic. That’s primarily because it largely depends on what we take consciousness to be in the very first place!

For example, on certain accounts, it is indeed the case that consciousnesses is a natural phenomenon. However, on other (supernatural, religious, etc.) accounts, consciousness is not deemed to be natural at all.

All this brings on board the parallel problem of defining the word “natural” (at least within this limited context).

Naturalisation

So is it that consciousness must be naturalised in order for it to be a fit subject for science?

However, can consciousness be a natural phenomenon and still be a tricky thing to (fully) naturalise?

Indeed, isn’t it conceivable that a given natural phenomenon can be recalcitrant to naturalisation?

If one is a philosophical naturalist, then literally every thing is natural because there’s nothing else for it to be. Yet naturalising any given x may still be problematic or difficult.

Of course, all these statements and questions seem to be perfectly applicable to consciousness.

In any case, it will certainly be argued that consciousness isn’t like other natural phenomena (such as photosynthesis, combustion, cognition and even life itself). Indeed, even most naturalisers of consciousness will freely admit that consciousness isn’t really like other natural phenomena. However, and in many respects, no given natural phenomenon is like any other natural phenomenon. (Think here of an electron’s charge, and then compare that to the mating habits of a baboon.)

Consciousness most certainly does have distinct features…

Yet so too does every other natural phenomenon. (Now think of how high a flea can jump relative to its size, or consider superfluidity.)

So are the distinct characteristics of consciousness more distinct than all these other examples of (as it were) natural distinctness?

How on earth could a question like that be answered?

And isn’t it actually the case that we adult human beings take consciousness to be ultra-distinct and ultra-special simply because consciousness is very important to us? In addition, isn’t all this at least partly down to the fact that we have (at least on most accounts) first-person access to our own consciousness?

Consciousness and Science

It may not be that consciousness is unnatural, supernatural or even weird: it may simply be that it’s not amenable to the scientific methods scientists use for other natural phenomena.

Yet, here again, most natural phenomena aren’t analysed, tested or observed by the same scientific methods or in the same scientific ways either.

For example, what is done to discover the wave function of an electron is worlds away from what’s done to discover why birds flock together. Or, on a broader scale, the scientific methods and ways of biology and neuroscience are worlds away from the scientific methods and ways of quantum mechanics and sociology.

In any case, it’s probably the reality (or fact) of (the lack of) observation that clinches it when it comes to consciousness.

A human subject can’t observe another subject’s consciousness. Yet he can observe his own own consciousness. (There’s a problem here with the word “observe” when it comes to observing one’s own consciousness.)

Yet, here again, this human distinctness in deflated in the sense that physicists don’t actually observe electrons, quarks or fields either. Neither do scientists actually observe the Earth’s inner core or all the most distinct stars in the most distant galaxies. Less grandly, there are a whole host of natural phenomena in psychology, biology, chemistry, astrophysics, sociology, history, etc. which aren’t literally observed in any obvious — or literal — sense.

Moreover, without theory, such natural phenomena wouldn’t be the subject matter of these sciences at all. And, of course, the same may well be true of consciousness. Thus, the least we can say is that it’s observation + theory (or theory + observation) which accounts for nearly all the natural phenomena of the sciences — and that includes consciousness itself.

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