Two Conceptions of Consciousness

1
Two Conceptions of Consciousness

• Approaches to understanding the nature of
  conscious experience can be grouped into two
  broad categories. Following John Campbell
  (Reference and Consciousness, 2002) I will refer
  to these approaches as The Relational View and
  The Representational View. The Relational View
  conceives of consciousness as fundamentally a
  matter of a relation to the world, such that
  the phenomenal content of the experience of an
  ordinary observer is constituted by the
  qualitative character of the view the observer is
  currently enjoying which objects and properties
  are there in the scene, together with the
  viewpoint from which they are being observed.
  (p.146) In contrast, the Representational View
  conceives consciousness as fundamentally a matter
  of having internal representational states with
  certain properties, such that the phenomenal
  character of your experience is constituted not
  by the way your surroundings are, but by the
  content of your representational states. (p.116)

2
The Relational View / The Representational View

• (1)Externalist / Internalist conceptions of the
  contents of consciousness.
• (2) Direct / Indirect conceptions of perceptual
  experience.
• On the representational view, the
  representational content of experience may be the
  same in hallucinatory and veridical cases so
  the phenomenal character of experience is the
  same all that is different is the way in which
  it is caused.
• On the relational view, there is nothing in
  common between the hallucinatory and veridical
  cases in the veridical case, the object
  perceived is itself a constituent of the
  conscious experience. (cf. Disjunctive view of
  perception)
• (N.B. Relation to Representationalism (Tye,
  Dretske, etc.)?)

3
HOT/P (Higher Order Thought/Perception) Theories

• The Representational View goes naturally with the
  idea that the same (representational) state (e.g.
  a perceptual state) can be either conscious or
  non-conscious for the subject.
• The Relational View rules out the idea that the
  same (contentful) state could be either conscious
  or non-conscious for the subject, though two
  different states, one conscious one
  non-conscious, could have the same content.
• If it is essential to any Higher Order Theory
  that the same state can be either conscious or
  non-conscious, this shows that the Relational
  View rules out any Higher Order Theory. (But it
  doesnt show that any Higher Order Theory is
  necessarily a Representational View.)

4
Arguments Against The Representational View

• Campbell
• (1) Cant explain our ability to think about
  particular objects, especially in temporally
  extended and cross-modality cases.
• (2) Cant explain our ability to think about
  objects/properties themselves, as opposed to
  their dispositional profiles.
• McDowell
• (1) Misrepresents the nature of demonstrative
  thought.
• (2) Cuts off the perceiving subject from the
  world perceived
• Phenomenologically off-key threatens the
  presentness of the percieved environment.
• Epistemologically disastrous ultimately
  undermines the very idea of objective content.

5
A really terrible way of thinking about experience

• Imagine that some super neuroscientist (who knows
  all there is to know about these things) produces
  a film that is claimed to reveal what it is like
  to be a bat. However, when you see the film, you
  find that it just shows a swirling mass of
  coloured forms. Obviously, youre disappointed
  and seek out the neuroscientist for an
  explanation. However, she sticks to her claim
  the colours take on a different role in the bats
  phenomenology instead of representing aspects
  of the visual field they represent various
  features of the sound field. The bat uses its
  echolocatory sense to build up a spatial picture
  of the world, just as we use our visual sense.
  What we are missing, though, is all the responses
  we would make if we were able to use this
  colour-encoded information as bats do. What we
  are missing are all those responses we do have if
  we were to watch a film of hang-gliders flight
  from the point of view of the hang-glider, where
  we interpret the scene, and feel the movements.
  What we are missing, then, is what the colours
  mean to the bat.

6
The Arbitrariness of Qualia

• The role of the colours in the film is completely
  arbitrary they could easily have been inverted,
  or otherwise swapped around, and still have
  played the same role and this is not only true
  in terms of their correlation with the input
  the features of the sound field but also with
  respect to any responses further downstream.
• But the same is true, given this way of thinking
  about experience, in the case of the human visual
  system. Considered purely in terms of
  correlations with input and responses, any given
  role could just as well have been played by any
  other colour. So, colours in human visual
  experience would be just as arbitrary as those in
  the bat film.
• And with this arbitrariness comes Wittgensteins
  point the colours could constantly change but
  you dont notice. Always get rid of the idea of
  the private object in this way assume that it
  constantly changes, but that you do not notice
  the change because your memory constantly
  deceives you. (Philosophical Investigations,
  p.177 207)
• (cf. The arbitrariness of signs. But seems
  worse, signs are at least respectable physical
  kinds, whereas qualia exist only in experience.)

7
The Problem is the Representational View

• This looks like a problem for any view that takes
  colour experience to consist in the presence of
  an internal representation. Imagine that you
  need to come up with a system of representation
  for objects in respect of their colours. To do
  this, you have a set of tokens that range in
  colour in precisely the way the objects do. Now,
  to represent a colour, the natural thing would be
  to use a token of the same colour, but there is
  nothing that compels you to do this. The
  representational role would be just as well
  served if one reversed the order, or changed it
  in some other way, so long as all the
  consequences were similarly rearranged.
• Atkins response to the bat film is to make the
  Kantian move of arguing that what is wrong is the
  idea that we can separate the representational
  and qualitative aspects of experience (the scheme
  and content). But actually it looks as though
  this move comes too late to the extent that one
  even recognizes a qualitative element in
  experience, so long as the experience is
  conceived in terms of an inner system of
  representations, then the qualities, whatever
  they are, are arbitrary.

8
The Solution is the Relational View

• The only way to prevent this arbitrariness is to
  put the colours back into the world, and to
  conceive of colour experience as a matter of the
  world, with all its colours, appearing to the
  subject.
• But, it might be objected, couldnt the same
  issue apply to those external qualities?
  Couldnt it be the case that the colours of
  objects constantly change but we dont notice
  them change? Well, this is a coherent
  possibility, but it would also be an objective
  fact that is in principle accessible and this
  is what is missing in the case where the
  qualities are located in the mind.
• (N.B. I need an account of colours, and other
  secondary qualities, such that it could not be
  that the colours of objects keep changing and it
  is in principle impossible for anyone to tell.
  The idea of colours it is impossible for anyone
  to perceive is incoherent.)

9
Other Responses to the Argument

• (1) Qualia Eliminativism
• Goes beyond Atkins claim that we cant separate
  the representational and qualitative aspects of
  experience in denying that there is any
  qualitative aspect to experience.
• (I think Dennett effectively makes this move. I
  do not think its defensible.)
• (2) Qualia Reductionism
• Cliams that qualia are not arbitrary because they
  can be identified with specific (types of)
  neurophysiological states.
• Misses the point the idea that, given a
  particular complex physical state, an experience
  of a particular quality will arise in the system,
  is irrelevant to the argument. It is still the
  case that a different physical state, associated
  with a different experience, could have played
  the same representational role in the system.

10
Other Arguments for the Representational View

• (1) The Emergence of Consciosness
• (2) The Argument from Illusion
• (3) Argument from Variation in Perceptual
  Experience
• None are decisive in favour of Representational
  View.
• Therefore, Relational View should be taken as
  default position.